As the national debt topped $38 trillion thanks to decades of profligate deficit spending, the federal budget in the past fiscal year hit $7 trillion. A large portion of federal spending is on government programs of income redistribution — taking money from some Americans and giving it to other Americans (or, all too often now, non-Americans). This is not constitutional, and the wisdom of this “charity” is, at best, debatable.

America is a generous nation, but the demand for generosity as if it were a “deserved” right is no longer generosity; it has become an entitlement.

Over time, the notion has emerged that people who do not work are entitled to compensation simply because they “need” it to survive. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP — a.k.a. food stamps) is a classic example. Currently, roughly 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits, which equates to over 12% of the U.S. population. That 42 million Americans depend upon food stamps to survive here in the wealthiest nation on the planet is suspect at best. That they’d “starve” without benefits is a hoax.

The concept of SNAP, providing a temporary safety net for people who suddenly find themselves in dire financial straits, is noble and laudable. However, when American taxpayers fund such programs, it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that those receiving assistance are in genuine and legitimate need, and the ultimate goal of seeing people move off such assistance is paramount.

Instead, what has developed is the problem of increasing government dependency. Indeed, the government program itself becomes incentivized to expand and grow, which in turn feeds more taxpayer dollars into the program because demand has increased. Politicians are incentivized to push for expansion, as more dependent constituents mean more votes.

In the case of SNAP, the argument has evolved from simply providing a means for people to buy food to sustain themselves to arguments about which kinds of food should be off-limits for purchase with food stamps. Apparently, the “nutrition” part of SNAP doesn’t apply when folks want to use their food stamps to buy Coke and candy bars.

If the concern were simply whether food stamps could be used to purchase junk food, that would be relevant but not criminal. But of course, it doesn’t stop with junk food.

The fraud scandal in Minnesota, involving taxpayer-funded government assistance programs, exposes the more insidious problem with welfare entitlements. Individuals with nefarious motives have exploited Americans’ generosity to enrich themselves and others to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars.

The party that most often pushes for these welfare entitlement programs, the Democrats, unsurprisingly ignored warnings and concerns over carefully regulating these programs. Minnesota state Representative Kristin Robbins, a Republican who chairs the state’s Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy, blasted Governor Tim Walz’s leadership. She called the degree of fraud connected to an assisted living program “unbelievable,” contending, “We continue to miss the most basic internal controls and the most basic checks and balances when we are enrolling providers.”

Robbins surmised, “And I’m assuming it’s happening in other states. As we’ve seen, there is a similar fraud going on in Maine, and I’m sure many other states. And so I think all agencies around the country need to be attuned to this and need to look at the programs.”

The Somali fraud scandal, which was perpetrated through Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services (HSS), could have easily been prevented had the federal and state governments done their jobs. Had diligent oversight been exercised, this fraud would have been detected early and its perpetrators held to account.

But too often it’s an issue of an “other people’s money” attitude. Those doling out funds are not giving from their own bank accounts; therefore, the motivation to ensure that every dollar is carefully accounted for and that every effort is made to ensure that those receiving this assistance are actually in need and deserving is — to put it mildly — lacking.

Caring for others’ needs also means using the funding provided for those needs with care. It is abusive and immoral to treat the American taxpayer like a no-limit credit card, to endlessly run up the bill. Lack of concern for fiscal restraint ironically belies a lack of concern for the welfare of others.

While the massive fraud problems that have been uncovered with these welfare programs are deservedly making the headlines, the bigger scandal is the sheer size, scope, and number of these taxpayer-funded government welfare programs that exist in the U.S. It’s a backdoor socialism that is robbing Americans of more than just their hard earned cash, its robbing too many Americans from developing a strong, self-reliant, self-affirming work ethic.