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Posted on 08/25/2002 9:59:47 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
What's mine is mine, and what you have left is up for negotiation. That, in essence, is the standard political trick all of our politicians employ to dull our brains. For example, rather than discussing how much revenue the government needs, the pols always start with the assumption that every penny they now have is absolutely essential and is being spent wisely to meet a critical need. Therefore, the only topic open to discussion is how much of an increase in revenue they will get this year. We should say that if you want to create a new bureaucracy, you must first eliminate an existing one. If you want to spent money on x projects, you must eliminate money you're spending on y projects. And, as a matter of fact, your entire budget should be cut 10 percent across the board, and the equivalent amount of taxes repealed. If the American people ever presented such a proposition, I can guarantee that Democrats and Republicans would be stunned speechless. They have become used to the idea that no law, once passed, can ever be repealed, no bureaucracy can ever be dismantled, no appropriation ever zeroes out. Most politicians would genuinely think you were crazy. The very idea of rolling back government is as foreign to them as a trip to Mars. But, if we the people don't start doing that, there's not much hope for our future. Governments at all levels already consume nearly 50 cents out of every dollar we earn, and every one of them is moaning and groaning, as they do year in and year out, about how they need more of our money. The control over our lives grows steadily, like a cancer, until one day we will wake up and realize too late that we're no longer free. Perhaps we should remind ourselves of the order of things. First come people. They settle an area, and after they have seen to their needs, they get around to forming a government to do a few tasks. Never forget that you can have a community without a government, but you can't have a government without people. That's because the nature of government is parasitic. It is nothing more than institutionalized force that, under the best of circumstances, is used to protect the rights and liberties of its citizens. Government is always supported by the labor of the people. Taxes, all of which are collected at gunpoint (though the gun remains hidden until you resist), are confiscations of private wealth. I'm not suggesting that we return to frontier days, but that we, the folks who pay the bills and obey the laws, must force our politicians to do a better job of setting priorities. None of us can do everything he or she wants; neither can government. None of us is master of every task; neither is government. Spending $100 million, as the federal government is about to do, to "promote marriage" is a good example of overreach into an area where government is incompetent. We must become realistic. I love the story of the French Foreign Legion soldier posted to Paris during a series of terrorist bombings. A lady approached him and asked for directions. "We don't give directions," he said. "We kill people." And he's right. The legion is in the business of war, not tourism. If we could just get our government to concentrate on doing a few things right, instead of a multitude of things incompetently and wastefully, we'd have a better future. I still dream of one day seeing a special session of the Legislature devoted to doing nothing but repealing bad laws and dismantling failed bureaucracies. Unless you've lost faith in democracy, you have to believe that it really could happen one day. |
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I've never had faith in democracy to begin with!
And here's a clue...neither did the Founding Fathers!
A Republic, If You Can Keep It
You're like a flag on a pole Mr. Reese. You fly whichever way the wind blows.
You too know the difference, yet...
I think he was just using the small "d" (democracy) to represent the power of the people to shape a government of their choosing. Right now we seem to have a freewheeling and spending government especially here in Kalifornistan!
You are exceedingly correct. It is the people who accepted the situation and logic then follows that the people are responsible.
However, if you turn to the people for a solution there are several observations to deal with.
Consider that 50% of all income earners pay 96% of the income tax, which means that 50% of income earners pay 4% of the income tax. Some of the 50% who pay 4% of the income tax receive a tax refund larger that the total tax they paid in withholdings. That is called a negative tax.
Now give those numbers a little nudge to a time in the near future where 50% of the income earners are paying 100% of the taxes. Now, one final small nudge; 49% pay 100% of the income tax. That leaves the 51%, or the majority as they are sometimes referred too, with a zero tax burden.
What do these facts mean in regard to the topic? It means that there is difficulty it asking people who are not burdened by taxes to take a position to lower the taxes of the 50% who pay 96% of the income tax and thereby raise their own tax burden.
Most can readily see that reducing the need for the excessive taxes would be a step in the correct direction. Who will be the first to insist that certain unnecessary expenditures be curtailed in favor of a sound fiscal policy? Careful now, one of those unnecessary expenditures may affect your job or your means of earning your income.
As some author said, “it’s too late to use the system and it’s too early to just shoot the bastards”. We accepted the corruption and its many veins of expansion and soon we may even accept democracy as proposed by the Democrat Party. We are responsible and our children and grandchildren will suffer the burden.
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