In my column today, I discuss this idea that the government is our brother and our keeper (a regular theme of mine). In a White House photo-op the other day, Obama posed with Jim Chukalas, an unemployed car parts manager who wants unemployment benefits extended and doesn’t want to hear any objections, either. He said:

Should we let Americans fall off a cliff or should we help them? There shouldn’t be a debate as to where the money comes from. I mean, if your brother or your sister needed something, you wouldn’t say, ‘When are you going to pay me back?’”

Of course, lots of families do in fact ask these kinds of questions. And, unlike the federal government, they’re your family. Obama is very fond of this category error. From the column:

On countless occasions he has said that his central vision of government is to fulfill the Biblical mandate to be “my brother’s keeper, my sister’s keeper.” Health-care reform, for instance, was an effort to meet this “core moral and ethical obligation.”
Leave aside that the Bible does not tell anyone to be their brother’s keeper (the phrase appears once, when Cain sarcastically tries to dodge a murder rap from God). It is just plain weird that anyone thinks we should all view government as our Big Brother.

Meanwhile, a clarification/correction:

“Extending benefits” means paying the unemployed more than they paid into the unemployment system. (The money Chukalas paid into that system — his money — ran out long, long ago.) In other words, this is direct assistance from the federal government, which actually means direct assistance from taxpayers, which means Chukalas is really asking for money from complete strangers. Moreover, he thinks all of the moral equities line up on his side of the argument, and that there shouldn’t even be a discussion about where the money comes from or any talk of paying it back.

This was sloppy to the point of incorrect. The employer pays the unemployment insurance. But I was thinking in terms of total compensation. The employer considers the unemployment insurance a labor cost and it ultimately comes out of the worker’s compensation. Anyway, my apologies.