It is the word you hear when filling out tax forms and describing addictions: dependence. Seeing the word rarely brings joy unless you are able to claim a few while filling out your tax forms. In almost all other contexts, the notion of dependency is something people generally like to avoid. It is considered a sign of immaturity or incapability to be dependent on someone or something. Indeed, that is the case, and the number of people in the United States who are dependent on someone or something to continue living as they are—is growing at an unsustainable rate.

The number of people in the U.S. who are dependent on food stamps, medicare, social security—is beginning to get out of hand. Individual people are not the only ones surviving on the government’s dime: businesses are beginning to survive solely because of the government’s aid. This was made obvious during the recent financial crisis when the government bailed out AIG and other firms that would assuredly have gone bankrupt were it not for the government’s intervention. This phenomenon of bailing out failing companies is clearly unsustainable, but even more concerning than that are companies who could not have gotten off the ground without government support.

It seems like nearly every week the headlines are filled with storylines about how the government is funding some type of renewable-energy initiative. While renewable energy may be great, the business prospects of it rarely are. The entire industry would be sunk overnight if the government pulled support for it.

Empires rise and fall. Along with the rise and fall come a predictable stage of events that define nearly every empire, and the United States has followed the stages to a T.

First, there is a move from bondage to spiritual faith. Then, there is a move from spiritual faith to great courage, courage to liberty, liberty to abundance, abundance to complacency, complacency to apathy, apathy to dependence, and dependence back into bondage. One need only look at history to see the validity of these steps: Rome, Greece, Persia. The United States is slowly but surely moving from the apathy to dependence on other nations, disguised as dependence on our own government.

Very soon, the U.S. will reach a breaking point. The government is running out of ways to tax people and support new economically-disastrous ventures that may be good for society but in business prospects doomed for failure.

The United States needs to watch how it conducts itself. It can no longer throw money around and hope it finds successful outlets.

By: Aaron Overfors

[email protected]