MOULTRIE — This past June, my wife and I traveled out to Yosemite National Park for a family wedding. Aside from all the wedding festivities, we were able to spend several days touring the Park’s many attractions. Walking amongst the Giant Sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, watching the sunset shadows fall across El Capitan at Tunnel View, and taking in the vast panorama at Glacier Point – these were just a few of the majestic sights in what is undeniably God’s creation. But as we traveled along one of the few roads leading through the Park, I witnessed a lone coyote standing just off the shoulder. As we drove past, he didn’t spook or run off. He just stood there rumaging through the scraps of food an earlier visitor threw out of a car window. Despite hundreds of “Do not feed the wildlife” signs posted throughout the Park, visitors – undoubtedly with the best of intentions - had continued to deliver food to this creature until it permanently diluted his natural instinct to hunt. Far from representing a threat, the line of vehicles rolling by the coyote signaled a packaged deal – a catch without the chase. To him, it was easy money. I shutter to think of the coyote’s fate over the next few months as snow falls in Yosemite and all of the roads are closed to traffic.

Unfortunately, this same scene is playing out amongst the American citizenry and its relationship with the federal government. With a chance to choose between acknowledging the federal government’s ever-increasing rate of spending and the growing rate of our dependency on government programs, voters instead on November 6th chose to continue on a path that is simply unsustainable. And they chose it with fairly sizable margins. We are ignoring – at our own peril – all of the “Do not feed the wildlife” signs.

There is no denying what’s happening here. Our current national debt stands at 16.2 trillion dollars. In simpler terms, that’s 16.2 x 1,000,000,000,000.

This is an almost incomprehensible figure. Interest payments on the debt alone in 2011 were 227 billion dollars, nearly 7% of the entire federal budget. Yet also in 2011, the federal government spent 717 billion dollars of taxpayer money on 79 different means-tested welfare programs that benefitted approximately 100 million Americans – roughly a third of the entire U.S. population. (Amazingly, this number doesn’t even include federal spending on Social Security, Medicare, or unemployment insurance.) After adjusting for inflation, welfare spending was 16 times greater in 2011 than it was when President Johnson began the “War on Poverty” in 1964. For the past two decades, means-tested welfare programs have constituted the fastest growing component of government spending. According to the Census Bureau, however, 15% of the U.S. population - the highest number since 1983 - remains stuck below the poverty line. Nearly 50 years and 19 trillion dollars later, our federal government has literally nothing to show for its costly War on Poverty.

Instead, more of us are dependent on government programs than ever before and only half of us – the taxpaying half - are paying for them. It used to be that some of us reluctantly sought temporary support from the government to carry us through until we got back on the road to self-sufficiency.

That was the original intent. Not any longer. Nowadays, those of us on federal assistance have access to taxpayer subsidized phone and internet, education and training, cash, food, housing, and medical care. We’ve made it more appealing - and more acceptable - to get on the government dole than it is to get off it. And despite the discussions surrounding Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s lack of outreach to minority and women voters in the Presidential election, no political candidate – regardless of race or gender – can realistically expect to challenge the status quo of our present day give-away government. It’s hard to beat Santa Claus, especially when he is the incumbent.

Nearly 120 million Americans voted on November 6th. More than half of that number – 67.3 million Americans – receive some form of welfare subsidy from the federal government. And like the coyote in Yosemite standing by the road, they won’t bite the hand that feeds them.

In the face of overwhelming evidence – and in full view of the financial crisis in the European Union – American voters somehow still believe our Washington bereaucracy can solve all the problems of human misery by way of government and government planning. Instead of trusting in our capacity for self-government, we’ve instead chosen to transfer our dependence on ourselves, our families, our churches, and our local communities to what Reagan called “a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol.” This is the same intellectual elite that spent $325,000 on a study to determine how a rattlesnake would react to a robotic squirrel. I’m not kidding. Just google “RoboSquirrel.” I’d be willing to bet any Moultrian could have provided that information free of charge. As ridiculous as this is, our political leaders will begin discussions this week on new methods to legally confiscate, redistribute, and undoubtedly mismanage more hard earned income from those of us who produce. When the discussions result in higher taxes and more government, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves. We put them there.

The good news is - at some point, this has to stop. Sooner or later, the proverbial road will be covered with snow and closed to traffic. As Daniel Hannon said, “We cannot carry on squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit.” It will take considerable effort to stop the bleeding, but it can be done. We just need the right leaders. There comes a time in a man’s life when he realizes that Santa Claus isn’t real. It may break his heart and cause him a bit of grief, but he learns to adapt and overcome. I hope our country – and that Yosemite coyote – can do the same.

(Charles H. Cannon, IV,  of Washington, D.C. is formerly of Moultrie. You can reach him at chascannon@hotmail.com.)