Two questions arise. First, how did America wind up adopting such a dubious culture of entitlement and borrowing? Second, what if anything are we doing about it? Quite similar to a biological process, a nation’s cultural history tends to evolve over time. Pivotal points in economic history often mark the beginnings of periods of more rapid cultural evolution.
By 1936, the cultural attitudes in America were experiencing rapid rates of change. In response to the banking crisis that led to the Great Depression, elected officials had become completely receptive to the idea of increased government borrowing, while also fostering a much greater sense of entitlement in the American electorate. And as early as 1932, it became a winning political tactic to demonize the image of business interests. 
Before the end of the 1930’s there were dozens of new and culturally transforming literary works published. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath (1939), and other literature with similar messages, helped propel the process of government being perceived as a compassionately gentle savior of the people, while simultaneously casting businesses as nothing more than a cold heartless exploiter of American society. With Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes awarded to literary works associated with this viewpoint, the public education system jumped on the entitlement and anti-business bandwagon. As America’s cultural sense of entitlement and willingness to take on debt gradually strengthened, the nation’s cultural sense of thrift and self-reliance were gradually subordinated. And naturally, the attitudes of America’s ever attentive and ever opportunist elected officials reflected the nation’s changing cultural biases. 
By the mid 1960’s, the modern American adage that “anything worth doing is worth over-doing” was in full force. And as such, the relentless quest for a public policy-engineered utopia required ever ambitious elected officials in the federal government to subscribe to the theory that the passage of a few additional laws could somehow eliminate poverty. 
Forty-five years after the so-called “War on Poverty” was initiated, we find the unintended consequences of the electorate severely over-estimating the managerial capabilities of government in evidence everywhere. In the wake of several generations of continuous government subsidies for low skilled, single parent households, today America suffers from the burden of an enormous and firmly entrenched subsidy-dependent subculture. The defining characteristics of this subculture remain unskilled, single parent, households. Some thirty years ago the stark economic realities of government’s limitations collided with the naive world view that sees endless government-managed entitlements as sustainable.
Forty-five years after the so-called “War on Poverty” was initiated, we find the unintended consequences of the electorate severely over-estimating the managerial capabilities of government in evidence everywhere. In the wake of several generations of continuous government subsidies for low skilled, single parent households, today America suffers from the burden of an enormous and firmly entrenched subsidy-dependent subculture. The defining characteristics of this subculture remain unskilled, single parent, households. Some thirty years ago the stark economic realities of government’s limitations collided with the naive world view that sees endless government-managed entitlements as sustainable. 
By 1980 America’s economic performance had been so dismal for so long, voters were ready to try anything different in an effort to get the nation out of the competitive rut. Supply-side economist Arthur Laffer pointed the direction out of the abyss. There were few believers in Washington D.C. when the turnaround began. In Part II we will see how the economic policies of Ronald Reagan got things half right after policies of LBJ, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter got things all wrong.
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