Hate Petty Bureaucracy? Become a Socialist.
Right-wingers oppose social programs like Medicare for All on the grounds that they create "powerful new bureaucracies." But it’s means-tested benefits, not universal programs, that empower bureaucrats to act like petty tyrants.
President Bill Clinton signs the controversial welfare reform bill into law in the White House’s Rose Garden in 1996. (Dirck Halstead / Getty Images)
In my recent debate with Turning Points USA founder Charlie Kirk, I asked him how he can call himself a populist when he doesn’t even support pro-worker policies like Medicare for All. He responded that while a social safety net is fine, when that net becomes an overly generous “hammock,” it empowers government bureaucrats rather than ordinary people.
As I explained in the debate, that’s completely wrong. Bureaucrats are empowered not by broad and generous social programs but by means testing. It’s democratic socialists, not capitalism’s defenders, that want to give bureaucrats less sway.
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