Letter to Senator John Sununu

Senator Sununu,

I was pleased to read your essay in Time Magazine, "One nation on the dole."

I regret that I did not have time previously to respond effusively to your calm and consistent argument.

However, I have found myself reaching out to readers in my local community about the growing encroachment of the state and the impoverishment of our way of life and values.

I heartily agree with you: we are becoming a nation of dependents who are defined by what receive from the Government, rather than what believe and what we do for ourselves and our families.

three months ago, I wrote the following to a local newspaper:

"Welfare recipients, Social Security beneficiaries and veterans will not receive their handouts. That would actually be good things. Since when have we developed the fuzzy notion that it is a good thing to live off the government's dole?"

I believe that even Americans who are truly entitled to a remittance from the federal government are still living off the nation's dole.

I received a number of harsh responses for this last statement. One writer even childishly called me an "idiot." Not a very engaging conversation. Worse, it highlights the hyper-panic which has been ingrained in individuals who no longer see themselves capable of living with a handout. Terrible times, indeed.

Your essay in Time Magazine was both validating and refreshing.

2008 was not a good year for Republicans, and it sorrowed me greatly that you lost you seat in the Senate, a successful Congressman who bested the incumbent of your own party and triumphed over the then-sitting governor to gain the Senate seat in 2002. Your ascendancy that year was remarkable. I hope that this country will receive your limited-government services again in the future.

Before I close, I would like to remark that I believe more people in this country are not only defined by dependence to the State, but also by some category of victimization. Whether as a disabled person, a victim of abuse, a person of color, or any other category which suggest marginalization, people are clamoring to the trough even more, demand subsidy, when not even two generations ago the Greatest Generation pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and got working!

Mr. Sununu, thank you again for your candor about federal dependency and its enormous drain on the present economy and our future prosperity