A nation of moochers : America's addiction to getting something for nothing /

Sykes (A Nation of Victims) argues that hardworking, tax-paying Americans are being turned into the nation's piggy bank by freeloading "moochers," both individual and corporate, who have given in to a culture of dependence and free lunch. He lays all this squarely at the feet of "elite" liberals, whose "Assumption of Incompetence"-the default position of assuming that most Americans are incapable and thus must be cared for-has cultivated an atmosphere where people are no longer required to fend for themselves. He points to Katrina victims misusing benefits, homeowners who walk away from underwater mortgages, unemployment benefits fraudsters, adult children living with their parents, big businesses accepting bailouts, and, somewhat less persuasively, food stamps and free school lunches. Though he doesn't make an especially strong case that "Obamacare" is to blame, his argument is sobering: we've set up a system in which dependency begins at birth and extends through people's entire lives, which has brought us to a tipping point in which more Americans are relying on the efforts of others rather than their own. Interestingly, his cure is less systemic than social: he suggests "dismantling Moocher Nation" by restoring some of the stigma of accepting a handout. Though at times verging on the purely mean-spirited (recall the school lunches), his call for a return to personal responsibility is on point and persuasive. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Sykes (Dumbing Down Our Kids) has produced a determinedly one-sided look at the current American economy, arguing that the population is becoming increasingly dependent on government assistance. While many of the issues he raises are timely and newsworthy (e.g., unnecessary farm subsidies, loss of collective bargaining rights by public workers, the European debt crisis, corporate welfare, bank bailouts), his repetitive and biased viewpoint provides little new information, focusing instead on extreme and perhaps apocryphal examples of people taking advantage of the system, be it loans for education, mortgages, farm subsidies, pensions, or flood insurance. While researched and heavily footnoted, the book is crowded by quotations from the Heritage Foundation, and an entire chapter is devoted to Ayn Rand. No government program is deemed worthy, from free breakfast for school children to financial aid for college students. The only answers are to return to a culture of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and to "restore some of the stigma of mooching." This is a prime example of preaching to the choir. Those who agree with the author will have already heard all these stories; those who disagree will only be infuriated by them. VERDICT A strongly biased book. Not recommended.-Susan Hurst, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-good Education, 2007, etc.) are unlikely to find much food for thought in this warmed-over attack on what he describes as America's "new culture of bailouts and irresponsible grasping, everything from corporations feeding at the trough to the permanent 'victims' of Hurricane Katrina." While the author directs some of his ire toward CEOs and large corporations, his main target are the largely undeserving lower classes and a welfare state that has replaced the older American culture of self-reliance and increasingly "sustain[s] deadbeats" with "Other People's Money." Sykes accepts the necessity of the "[n]early half of means-tested welfare payments that go to low-income elderly in nursing homes or the disabled," but not so the other half, which he claims go to "able-bodied adults and their children." He targets extended unemployment benefits, foreclosure relief and even school breakfast programs for needy children as unwarranted: "If America's children were actually in the throes of famine or the landscape were littered with victims of deprivation, even an expensive program might be justified." Many readers on both sides of the partisan political divide, will likely agree with his diatribe against "The Great Bailout of 2008-2009[in which] taxpayers were essentially required to underwrite a decade of [financial] recklessness," but it's not exactly news. A tired argument for Tea Partiers and fans of conservative talk radio.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.