Skyrocketing food-stamp enrollments over the last few years have played a  notable role in this year’s presidential race, but it’s not just food stamps  that have exploded — it’s

entitlements, generally: housing subsidies, Medicaid  rolls, college loans and much, much more.

 

And the trend is threatening to chip away at the very pillars that keep  America’s civil society functioning.

 

Today, one in five Americans — 67 million of us, all told — rely on federal  aid in obtaining housing, food, income, health care or education.

 

The dependent population has been growing for years, of course. But the “Index of Dependence on Government,” published annually by The Heritage  Foundation, shows remarkably sharp spikes in dependence in the years since  President Obama entered the Oval Office.

Full Story