Yesterday’s Washington Examiner posted an editorial by the newspaper staff on the practice of using fear to block Republican attempts to cut the federal budget.

The editorial states:

“To be a little melodramatic, the budget would kill people,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently told CNN about House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity. “No question.” With the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund set to run out of money Thursday, and with none of the federal government’s 12 appropriations bills signed into law so far, you can expect a lot more melodramatic quotes like this one in the coming weeks.

Oddly enough, when faced with a Congress that was not going to give it more money, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) discovered that it actually did have enough money to finish the fiscal year.

The editorial reminds us that sixteen years ago, when the Republican Congress was debating welfare reform, Bob Herbert in the New York Times warned its readers that welfare reform “would hurt many people, would kill some and would help no one.”

The editorial at the Washington Examiner reviews the history:

Herbert could not have been much farther from the mark. Two years later, after President Clinton had signed welfare reform into law, New York Times journalist Jason DeParle reported that “welfare rolls have fallen more than 40 percent in three states that have been among the most energetic in urging recipients to work: Oregon, Wisconsin and Indiana. And caseloads have declined by 25 percent or more in 16 other states.” DeParle’s article said nothing about people dying in the streets of Portland, Milwaukee or Indianapolis.

Please follow the link to the Washington Examiner editorial for more examples of using fear to avoid reducing the size of the federal government. The cure for fear is knowledge, and it is time for American voters to understand the negative impact on America of an ever-increasing government.