By William L. Garvin
“An unlimited power to tax involves necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” Chief Justice John Marshall
First of all, you don’t deserve it! If the USA continues to elect leaders that are so incompetent that they can’t even balance a budget, if they continue to let the government spend far in excess of what they receive, then the credit rating should go down the toilet. The current Administration and its debt limit debacle give us absolutely no hope for the future. They are reminiscent of Wimpy, the character in the old Popeye cartoons. He was always trying to mooch a hamburger today for which he would pay tomorrow. That’s our wimpy government in a nutshell.
First of all, they intend to raise the debt limit $2.4 trillion dollars, the largest increase in the history of our nation. The President wants his hamburger today. Of course he will pay for it tomorrow. That is to say, he will let someone else pay for it AFTER he is out of office. That’s why they want to spread the spending cuts over the next ten years. Then again, they aren’t cuts in the traditional sense of the word. To a normal person, a “cut” means you have less to spend next year than you have this year. To our government, a cut means that you only get a two percent increase instead of a three percent increase. In Obamanomics, the national debt will only increase $8 trillion instead of $9 trillion over the next decade!
For a change, the American public is paying more attention to this fiasco than ever before. Keep in mind that we have already had the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles committee offer suggestions to reduce the debt. President Obama ignored them. The Republican House passes the Ryan budget to help reduce the debt. The Democrat Senate voted it down. This is the same Democrat Senate that has failed to even produce a budget of its own for nearly three years. The House Republicans passed a “cut, cap and balance” effort to deal with the out of control spending. Senate Democrat Harry Reid buried it. He wouldn’t even let it come to the floor for debate let alone a vote. Democrats run from a a Balanced Budget Amendment just as vampires flee from daylight…and for the same reasons. House Republicans passed a second debt limit bill and again Senator Reid buried it. Now they are wrestling with another Rube Goldberg piece of legislation that has been concocted behind closed doors that will probably do nothing to systemically control the runaway federal government spending. The Democrat response is the usual “tax the rich” and “punish greedy corporate America” mantra.
Our federal government has long forgotten the caution provided by Thomas Jefferson: “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” Jefferson would see “social justice” and its progeny “redistribution of wealth” as Constitutional abominations.
Individuals and families have tightened their belts and reduced their spending. Companies have tightened their belts, reduced spending and laid off employees. Cities and counties have tightened their belts reduced spending and laid off employees. State governments have done the same. The Federal government has not tightened its belt nor reduced spending nor furloughed let alone laid off employees. Congress and the President have suffered no hardship nor have they shared in any sacrifice. All of their lavish perks and benefits remain fully intact…and their incompetence continues to be subsidized by the American taxpayer.
One final Jeffersonian caution: “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt…I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” It’s economic disaster when our leaders aren’t Constitutional scholars!
No comments:
Post a Comment