When President Clinton unveiled his $1.61 trillion budget this week, he called it "lean," and he challenged Republicans to find additional cuts. Clinton implied that the task would prove so daunting that the GOP would balk, particularly in the face of political opposition.

Imagine a budget of 1.6 million million of taxpayers dollars that finances programs, departments and projects so imperative that the president can cut no more. Clinton's budget shows a deficit of $200 billion to be added to our nation's $4 trillion debt. Put another way, the American economy generates enough money to hand $1.4 trillion over to the government in taxes.

Our federal debt -- the accumulation of years of deficit spending -- can be illustrated by a family earning $40,000 a year that carries a $114,000 debt. Divided up, there might be an $85,000 mortgage, two car loans totalling $20,000, and miscellaneous credit card and financing debt. But instead of cutting day-to-day expenses to pay down the debt, the family continues to add to it by borrowing money, financing an extravagant lifestyle.

Our government is no different. Collectivists love to decry America as a nation of exceeding wealth matched only by its exceeding greed and materialism. That is how they justify redistributing wealth from the productive to the non-productive. But we can ill afford as a nation to continue subsidizing sloth in the name of compassion.

Former President Ronald Reagan said: "The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern." What is an appropriate barometer is whether Americans choose -- or are able -- to finance private, charitable causes. To the extent government usurps the role of private charity, the charitable giving declines.

Beyond that, when government impels the giving, it invokes resentment among those required to finance so-called charity for strangers. Thus government is the true source of politics of envy and entitlement. The recipients of government welfare -- whether its food, housing and cash aid to the poor, health-care subsidies, or cash payments to retired citizens -- can lay claim to such benefits, because government has foisted the entitlements on taxpayers.

When prosperity is taxed to subsidize the non-productive, it stands to reason that you will get less of what is taxed and more of what is subsidized. Thus entitlement spending for welfare programs is the fastest-growing portion of the national budget.

As a result, private citizens no longer link local, private charity to their own interests -- giving temporary help to those down on their luck so they can return to the fold of productive members of the community. And, in the words of Pope John Paul II in his "Centesimus Annus": "Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity."

This is the most damning characteristic of collectivist, government "charity" and growing government entitlements. Those who would cede to government their security, also yield their freedom. A person whose self-interest is defined by self-security is only a step away from the worst of all actions: acquiescence in slavery. Security is the polar opposite of freedom. Whatever government gives it first must take away.

The growth of government comes with a cost that far exceeds the $1.4 trillion it will take this year from taxpayers. More costly is the loss of initiative and the socialization of men's spirit and creativeness. "You cannot paint the 'Mona Lisa' by assigning one dab of paint to a thousand painters," is how William F. Buckley illustrates the problem.

Our nation's greatness hinges on a successful economy, which depends on the proliferation of affluence. What is needed are men willing to shun the easy and comfortable life and take great risks, garner huge profits and re-invest them in the economy. Such men have little use for the safety nets of security our government insists are entitled -- at enormous expense to taxpayers -- to those who fail.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.