I read an interesting essay a few years back (and sadly, don't remember where or by whom, so I can't credit them or link to it.) It was on the cycle of democracies, and how they all (throughout history) fail eventually. It went something like this.
- People live in a dictatorship or monarchy.
- They are unhappy with distribution of wealth or other conditions and rise up and form a democracy.
- The democracy works quite well for 200 years or so as people and their descendants remember what it was like under a dictatorship and also remember the basic tenants of a democracy ("we the people").
- Over time, those memories fade and it starts to occur to people that they can become wealthier by voting to put dollars from the government's coffers into their own pockets.
- The people begin seeing the government as "them," forgetting that in a democracy, we are the government. People no longer take responsibility for or feel part of the government and make short-term, greedy decisions via vote.
Now, I have no idea if this is a bunch of hooey or not, but it does seem like we are in the final stages of this cycle. Everybody wants theirs, and don't realize that getting theirs means taking away from someone else, often their own children or grandchildren. I think we view entitlements as coming from the government, and not from the taxpayers. We forget that the more we spend on things like Medicare for the elderly, the less we have to spend on things like education for our children, and vice versa.
I can accept that people will have differing opinions on how the money should be spent (and that's a good thing), but I don't believe the decisions are being made thoughtfully, with an awareness of where the money comes from and what the trade-offs are, and mostly, that the government is not "them," it is "us" (or should be...it often feels like politician don't represent the interests of the people, but we are the ones who vote them in on their platforms and either re-elect or don't).
As I said, not sure if there is any merit to this idea, but it's interesting to noodle. The example of "It's the (government's) fault I'm broke" seems to align with this thinking of the government as "them" not "us" and a general lessening of taking responsibility.