Art Cashin On The New Normal's New Populism: 165 Million As State Dependents?

A Somewhat Ominous Op-Ed Recalls A Manufactured Ominous Quote – An op-ed in Forbes last week by Bill Wilson is causing some buzz in Wall Street watering holes. Its title is "165 Million Americans Are Dependents of the State: Is Tyranny Next?" Here's a bit of the essay:

Is America descending into a dependency state, where the majority uses its voting power to demand government services from taxpayers?

New research from Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R-AL) reveals that this reality may already be here, with more than 107 million Americans on some form of means-tested government welfare.

Add to that 46 million seniors collecting Medicare (subtracting out about 10 million on Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid, and other senior-eligible programs already included in Sessions’ means-tested chart) and 22 million government employees at the federal, state, and local level — and suddenly, over 165 million people, a clear majority of the 308 million Americans counted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010, are at least partially dependents of the state.

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