US News

‘Gimme’ culture imperils nation

The Wisconsin showdown between a determined Republican governor and spoiled public unions is shaping up as a crucial test of state and municipal solvency. But the financial stakes represent only part of the much larger conflict engulfing America.

The real war is over the entitlement culture itself. And while government spending is the most visible part, the ultimate issues are the character and fate of our nation.

Any serious conversation about American decline must start with the fact that too many of our countrymen have lost the plot about how the United States became the beacon of the free world, the world’s largest economy, and the lone superpower.

For those who have no sense or interest in how we got here, it is easy to believe we are immune from the laws of history that inevitably reduce empires to dust.

From that willful ignorance, it’s perfectly acceptable to demand pay without work, or, almost as insidious, pay and pensions that dwarf those of your neighbors who foot the bill.

It is also perfectly acceptable to assume that, if you have a house you can’t afford, the government — again, your neighbors — should be dunned to help you keep it. If your business is failing, the government’s deep pockets are there to bail you out, no?

Or if your child can’t read, it’s not your fault. It’s the teacher or the school system or the mayor. Any scapegoat will do, as long as it’s not you.

This is the noise of the entitlement culture as it plays out every day. It is contagious and so ingrained in how we live and think — somebody else is to blame and must pay — that we no longer think twice before demanding total satisfaction and expressing outrage when we don’t get it.

We are entitled to it now because we want it, whatever it is. If somebody else has it first, then we have been cheated and are doubly furious.

As for giving it back, or taking less, what are you, a sucker? This is America, man, a free country.

Indeed it is, and that’s the problem. We are free to be endlessly selfish, and nobody dares to tell us no.

Certainly, politicians won’t do it. The entitlement scam has dominated public life for the better part of 50 years. John F. Kennedy’s famous inaugural line of “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” turns out to have been the high-water mark of self-restraint.

Pretty much ever since, the “tax eaters” have been multiplying faster than the taxpayers. The balance has tilted so far that the great liberal lights of yesteryear, from FDR to JFK to LBJ, might well look at the Wisconsin unions and wonder what planet they’re from. They certainly wouldn’t recognize them as Democrats.

How dare the teachers skip school to protest? How dare they get fake doctor’s notes to avoid consequences?

Easy — they’re entitled.

Soon, other states will be facing the same choice and, as voters made clear in last year’s election, the war over Big Government will be settled in Washington.

It’s not a comforting thought. The best politicians have been unable to stop the entitlement culture. Most are happy to stoke the demands for more, more, more as the easiest path to power.

We can’t say we weren’t warned. Thomas Jefferson, naturally, foresaw the consequences of unchecked entitlement. “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

Educrats cheating our kids

Facing charges that high-school teachers and principals are gaming test scores and graduation rates, top city educrats insist it’s not so. They’re doing an audit to prove it.

Officials promise to dig into success that is sometimes too good to be true, but a memo outlining the plan is bathed in the communal feel-goodisms of “clarifications,” “improved training” and better “guidance.”

Officials also go wobbly on making public the results from in-house auditors. The memo says they “may issue a summary report noting the types of deficiencies identified and corrective actions taken.”

The approach, coming with an assertion that criticism is “overblown,” undercuts any hope of a clean review. Better not to do one at all than a tainted one.

The question of cheating is not academic. The city shelled out over $100 million in bonuses to teachers and administrators based largely on test scores and graduation rates.

There is suspicion even about Regents exams, with The Wall Street Journal finding that 65, the minimum passing score, was the most common score in many high schools.

Meanwhile, Albany was dumbing down elementary- and middle-school tests. As Susan Edelman reported in Sunday’s Post, just after former Education Commissioner Richard Mills reduced the number of required correct answers, an explosion of student gains followed.

In 2006, third-graders needed 17 out of 38 points on the math test, or 45 percent, to pass. Three years later, those taking the test needed just 11 points out of 39, or 28 percent.

With new state officials making tests tougher, new Chancellor Cathie Black has an obligation to clear the air about city results. Blowing more smoke won’t work.

TOPSY-TURVY OBAMA

If you’re keeping score, and you should be, here’s how the White House has handled the historic events unfolding in the Arab world.

It has criticized and demanded big changes from our allies in Egypt and Bahrain.

It has expressed regret over the slaughter of demonstrators by our adversaries in Iran and Libya.

To call it a “double standard” understates our mis-policy. The Obama White House has it upside down, inside out and backwards.

While even the best minds might not make a big difference during the upheaval, Washington’s mistakes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have had a clear impact. Its original sin of stubbornly making Israeli settlements a core issue has backfired, with Palestinians content to let Washington do their bargaining and turning to the United Nations to pressure Israel.

Obama, who reluctantly vetoed a Security Council resolution, set in motion the whole debacle. He has lost the trust of both sides, hardly a formula for bringing them together.

Strike up the band — amateur night plays on.


DANGEROUS ‘SPY’ GAME

Newspapers have identified an American involved in a possible murder case in Pakistan as part of a covert CIA team. The New York Times says it withheld that information about Ray mond Davis at the request of the White House, but re ported yesterday that “offi cials lifted their request to withhold publication.” Color me curious. Why? Pakistani mobs want to hang Davis, and their knowing his ties to the CIA will further inflame them and make it harder to get him released. Color me confused, too. The outing of agent Valerie Plame set off a special in vestigation that led to the conviction of Scooter Libby, a top aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Will the outing of Davis bring a similar probe? It certainly should.