What Big Daddy, Alias Uncle Sam, Will Do for YOU

IN the remote past, America's prevailing political philosophy held with Lincoln that government should do for the people only those necessary things that the people could not do for themselves. That notion now seems hopelessly quaint. Today's generations take it for granted that the U.S. Government is simply bursting with good deeds to perform for the individual, whether strictly necessary or not. But no man of mortal mind can know of everything that Washington is ready and willing to do for him.

In the decades between the New Deal and the Great Society, the big public agencies that regulate or influence activities from commerce to pest control, from agriculture to culture, became part of the American scene, if not the American Dream. While the programs are familiar and well publicized in their broad outlines, most people except those directly affected do not know the details in all their dizzying ramifications. How Uncle Sam turned into Big Daddy is delineated in The Encyclopedia of U.S. Government Benefits (William H. Wise & Co.; $9.95), whose revised edition, incorporating Lyndon Johnson's new measures approved by the 89th Congress, is coming off the presses this week. Part of the publisher's purpose is to help people find out about Government benefits they could rightfully claim but often pass up. In a larger sense, however, the volume --whose index begins with Accidents, airplane and ends about 2,000 items later with Zoological Park, National--tells a great deal about a government system that concerns itself with details of daily living beyond the fantasies of yesterday's Utopians. To move through its 1,011 pages is to have one's eyes opened to a wonderland of federal paternalism that stretches from cradle to grave or, as the Department of Health, Education and Welfare might prefer to put it, from the Children's Bureau to the Office of Aging.

From Infancy to College

The Government's concern for children begins early--with hospital care for premature babies. Other health and rehabilitation programs for youngsters are myriad. Government funds help provide day care for children of working mothers. Some 15 million schoolchildren, or one of every three in the nation, get a hot lunch every day, thanks to a program in which the U.S. pays one-fifth of the bill. Social security checks go each month to more than 1,500,000 orphaned children, while children disabled before reaching 18 may under certain circumstances receive Government payments for the rest of their lives. Such is the U.S.'s concern for children that it has a special offer for runaways under 16: the Government will pay the cost of returning them to their homes.

Schooling, of course, is next. The new education act provides mostly for indirect aid channeled through the states, and it may take a while before its effects are fully felt. But a lot of direct aid already exists--notably Government fellowships at the college-graduate level. For instance, graduate students may qualify for further schooling and stipends if they need competence in one of more than 100 languages to equip them to 1) teach in U.S. institutions of higher learning or 2) take a job, whether or not with the Government, which will "contribute significantly to the conduct of the nation's economic, cultural, educational, scientific or political relations." Other fellowships under the National Defense Education Act are aimed at helping graduate students prepare for teaching in U.S. colleges; they offer about $2,000 per year for three years, with annual allowances of $480 for each dependent. All such income is taxexempt, and the fellowships generally help bring about draft deferment.

Even if prolonged by other Government grants, such as one for studying air pollution, those dear old happy schooldays must end sometime. And now comes the day to go to work for a living. Here again, Uncle Sam stands ready with a helpful hand. In one year some 345,000 high school seniors received counseling from the U.S. Employment Service, and more than 113,000 were placed in permanent jobs; although their need is not so great, graduating collegians receive the same benefit, and the employment service has offices set up on many campuses. As further aids, the service puts out a Dictionary of Occupational Titles, which describes and classifies some 22,000 jobs, and an information kit that includes sample letters to prospective employers. The high school dropout gets even more solicitous attention.

Finally, if for one reason or another a job falls through after a couple of years, the Government cooperates in an occupational retraining program; the typical applicant goes cost-free to a federal-state training center while continuing to receive unemployment compensation, or a cost-of-living equivalent, for as long as 52 weeks.

From Business to Homesteading

If, after completing his training, a man wants to go into business on his own, that's fine with the Government, particularly if it is a "small" business (the big businessman had better expect to make it on his own). There are various official definitions of what constitutes a small business--for instance in manufacturing, one that has 250 or fewer employees but, depending on the industry, can have up to 1,000. Certain small businesses are excluded from benefits, including all those that derive income from gambling.

To set up or maintain a small business, the Government makes or participates in loans up to $350,000 to provide working capital, assist in plant construction, conversion or expansion, and buy machinery or other equipment. Moreover, Small Business Administration experts are ever ready to advise small businessmen as to which Government agencies are prospective customers for his products or services, to help him place his name on a bidders' list, or to assist him in obtaining drawings and specifications for contracts.

Suppose the American in quest of an occupation doesn't want to be a businessman, not even a small one. Suppose he wants to be a farmer. Although farmers are steadily leaving the land, from the point of view of the Government's eagerness to help, farming is best of all. Almost everyone knows that the U.S. spends a spanking big sum in subsidizing the six so-called basic commodities: wheat, corn, cotton, peanuts, rice and tobacco. But tung nuts? Or mohair? Or honey? Yes, these and many other products also come in for subsidies. To protect the farmer from natural disaster, the Agriculture Department offers him insurance, unavailable from private companies, against everything from earthquakes to bugs. Government loans at 5% and up to $60,000 and 40 years are made to help the "family farmer" buy, enlarge or develop property; other loans are available for livestock, feed, fertilizer, equipment and food freezers.

Under the Great Plains Conservation Program, farmers in ten states can average $2,500 a year for up to ten years in Government cost-sharing for carrying out approved conservation plans. As for home life down on the farm, the Agriculture Department issues plans--many of them free, others costing a mere 300--of houses designed for country living but equally applicable to cities and suburbs. And to enhance the existence of the farmer's wife, Government agricultural extension agents offer courses in, among other things, cooking, family budget planning and upholstery.

What if a citizen has that old instinct for frontiering and virgin-soil busting? As it happens, the Homestead Act of 1862 is still in effect, though for most practical purposes it has been abrogated by the realities of modern America. Alaska is the one major exception. As of now, only about 20,000 Alaskan acres are being farmed by some 200 fulltime and 350 part-time farmers. It is estimated that 3,000,000 Alaskan acres could be used for productive farming; most of these are or will be open for homesteading. Yet for citizens tempted to dash off to Alaska, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has a dour warning. Despite Alaska's marvelous potential--in some areas, 30-in. cabbages grow with little or no coaxing--homesteading is a remarkably rough go, and many who have tried it have failed.

But don't despair! Rather, remember the fact that, homesteading aside, public-domain desert land in western states can still be had for $1.25 an acre by anyone willing to irrigate or otherwise try to improve it. There is also a felicitous little law under which an individual can buy, at prices ranging from virtually nothing up to several hundred dollars, five acres of public-domain property almost anywhere in the U.S. for such varied but specified uses as vacation spots, housing or business.

From Mining to Recreation

Interested in mineral prospecting? Gone is the bewhiskered old fellow whose only real pal was his donkey. His modern successor is much more likely to be darting about in a helicopter equipped with all kinds of detection gadgets--and Uncle Sam has a place in his heart for him. Not that the Government grubstakes. But it does allow prospectors to stake a mineral claim on Government land. And landowners can get Government funds to the amount of $250,000 to explore and prove out deposits of 35 selected minerals, ranging alphabetically from antimony to uranium. One major requirement for such aid: there must be a "reasonable probability of significant discovery of ore." Repayment to the Government is made in the form of a 5% royalty on production. No production, no repayment.

Whatever vocation a man decides to take up, he will require shelter. There are all sorts of Government-sponsored housing programs, rural and urban, lower-class and middleclass, those based on the principle of urban renewal and those based on the hope of rural revival. The primary Government agency for shelter remains the Federal Housing Administration, which gives away nothing. The FHA does not make loans; instead, it offers mortgage insurance on housing loans made mostly by non-Government banks and other lending agencies. But no one should underrate the FHA in its efforts on behalf of the individual. For example, through its mortgage policies it has recently encouraged condominium--fairly old hat in Europe and parts of Latin America--as opposed to cooperative apartment housing. In a condominium, a person actually takes title to his dwelling space in an apartment building, and is responsible only for the mortgage debt and taxes on his own property; in a coop, by contrast, he has only a stock-style share and depends on the solvency of the whole project. Apart from such attempts to promote individual ownership, the FHA shows its concern for the individual in other ways, notably by instituting something called the Forbearance Provision, which in some cases allows people to default on their mortgage payments without risking foreclosure.

For anyone who needs home furnishings, the Government offers vast bargains in surplus-property sales. Some items, like old Liberty ships and spacecraft equipment, may be of more interest to the businessman than to the homeowner, but the imaginative decorator can do a lot with lighting fixtures, plywood, chains, or even barber chairs. Moreover, while the Government does not exactly help anyone shop on the installment plan, Washington does sponsor credit unions, which keep members away from the loan shark.

In these and countless other ways, Washington seeks to further every citizen's health and wealth. But how about happiness? Intangible though that concept is, the Government tries. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare, for instance, has a Joint Task Force that looks into all kinds of community troubles, particularly those afflicting people in public housing. The problems with which the Task Force is ready to lend a hand under certain conditions include "family discord and conflict, poor housekeeping practices, debts, insufficient income, problems of youth." Such conditions easily lead to upset minds, and Washington gives grants-in-aid for psychiatric counseling and care.

But happiness has a more positive aspect--for instance, recreation. In this area, Government is at its helpful best. In a very big way, it manages to work recreation in as part of its agricultural and conservation programs. It is perfectly possible for the rural landowner to get federal cost-sharing funds for building a pond or lake, to have that body of water stocked, free of charge, with fingerlings from federal fish hatcheries, get Government loans for buying boats, clearing camping grounds and building lodges for fishermen. For the use of any of these facilities, the sportsman pays fees to the individual property holder, who, the Government hopes, will make a profit out of it. What about those who do not care for water or fishing? The Government offers the rural landowner similar benefits (40-year loans of up to $60,000 if secured by real estate) for installing such items as riding stables, tennis courts and golf courses.

Happiness is also hobbies, and the Government is enthusiastic about them. To the philatelist, the Post Office Department offers, at face value plus the cost of handling and mailing, stamps especially selected for good centering and "freedom from tears and other flaws." For the gardener, the Agriculture Department has a list of nurseries that sell rare plants. The bird watcher can rejoice in the fact that the Commodity Credit Corp. is authorized to donate grain in bulk to feed migratory birds during periods of blizzard, flood and drought. All amateur railroaders should have a copy of the Army Map Service's No. 8024, which charts each and every track of each and every U.S. railroad.

From Lunar Maps to Headstones

As a matter of fact, Government maps, charts and photos of almost every description are available at reasonable prices. The Agriculture Department supplies aerial photographs of any section of the U.S. ($2.10 for one 18 by 20 in.). The U.S. Geological Survey sells maps delineating' the world, individual continents, oceans, states, counties, and even the U.S.'s subsurface. Aeronautical and nautical charts are invaluable, and the Air Force, which has already published a pictorial atlas of the moon, is presently preparing lunar charts to the scale of 1 in. to 15.7 miles.

If chart reading should pall and travel beckon, the U.S. Travel Service has advice about how best to go far, fast and inexpensively. While the Government has not yet taken a hand in promoting the citizen's social life, the Travel Service will arrange for visitors from abroad to stay in the home of almost any American who wants foreign company.

Virtually a small welfare state in itself is the Veterans Administration, which costs $5 billion a year and dispenses benefits from false teeth to burial and headstones. In no area is the U.S. Government more warmly involved than in its attempts to ease the problems of the aging citizen. The medicare bill was enacted into law only last July, and its provisions will surely change the way of life of the aging to an extent still difficult to imagine. Apart from medicare and the vast social security program that supports it, there are smaller, more personal, less publicized programs. One of these is a little project called "Meals on Wheels." It was developed by HEW's Office of Aging, and it brings a hot meal every day to elderly people who have no one to assist them in their own marketing.

All of this only scratches the surface of Government services and benefits. In a country that still upholds the public ideals of self-reliance and initiative, the Government cocoon --often invisible--that surrounds the individual certainly represents a major change. Though largely inevitable in a modern, complex society, the phenomenon is open to criticism. In the application of Parkinson's Law, once an agency exists, it can be counted on not merely to do what is necessary, but at all costs to find new things to do.

"Ask not what you can do for your Government, but ask what your Government can do for you," may not be a particularly noble sentiment, but it seems to be fairly general. Can anyone recall seeing a protester burn up his social security card?

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