The Ants On the Hill

It is easy for us on the right to pick and choose elements of the Liberal’s agenda and ridicule them individually. However, if you look at their agenda en mass the picture becomes clear, at least to me. The stark difference between Liberals and Conservatives is what the role of government should be.

Take a look at this headline:

Obama pitches $1B climate change 'resilience fund' by Laura Barron-Lopez at The Hill

Initially I was going to write a gripping post bitching about yet another waste of taxpayer dollars on some cause that I personally don’t agree with. Then it occurred to me, would I be just as pissed if it was me that directly benefited for government largess?   This thought led me to the (re) realization that the problem is not where the government spends taxpayer dollars - it’s that they are in a position to spend taxpayer dollars at all.

When I lived in Florida I found that if you leave just one measly crumb out on the counter, by morning ants would have somehow found find it. And God forbid if you were to leave a heap of dirty dishes in the sink, because, by the next morning thousands of the little buggers would be all over the kitchen. The point is that where there is food there would soon be ants. The same can be said of our federal government except instead of food, the bait is tax dollars. And it’s not ants it’s the rent-seekers and lobbyist and con artist in the guise of politicians who vie for those dollars.

Each year Americans send over two and a half trillion dollars to Washington. And even that’s not enough to quench their thirst for money so the federal government borrows yet another trillion or so from the Chinese. Now when you have that much money in one place there is no way any self-respecting lobbyist/rent-seeker/politician can resist. I mean is their job, right, it’s what they do. So each year the ants on Capitol Hill begin the feeding frenzy to divide up the spoils provided by the taxpayers. Now imagine that for a moment, $3,700,000,000,000.00 A YEAR! So the real point here is not where they decide to waste the taxpayers’ dollars it’s why in the world we send the dollars to these criminals in the first place.

Back in Florida if I didn’t want to wake up to an army of ants crawling all over my kitchen I would simply take the source of their visits  took away and Voilà- no ants. Thus, if we want to get rid of the constant corruption and cronyism in Washington - take away the source.

Ahhh, you say, if you do that, what about the babies? What about the homeless? What about the jobless?  What about all the great, wonderful things the federal government gives us?

Valid points I suppose, but here is the real question. Do you actually want the Federal government making decision to apply your tax dollars to - say a some bullshit climate change resilience fund? Who on God’s green earth would agree to pay for this crap? My guess is lobbyist/rent-seekers and others who benefit when the federal government disrupts the market and stupidly throws a billion dollars at something that will only benefit the cronies. So, by taking away the tax dollars (and the ability to borrow incessantly) the ants on the hill have no choice but to only apply those dollars to the most important missions such as keeping the country safe.

As for the babbies, the homeless and the jobless, the individual states are in a much better position to take care of these and many other issues now occupying the ants in Washington. I would argue that there is not one thing the Federal government can do (other than national security) better than the individual states can do for themselves. This way of thinking has the added bonus of keeping the states in line as well through competition. If, for example, California decides to raise taxes and build useless high-speed railways that’s their prerogative. However, they can’t bitch when all the folks who are paying for this crap decide to pack up and move to another state . So in California they either change their ways to or go bankrupt (remember there ain’t no money in the till in Washington for a bail out).

Exit homework assignment: for those who still doubt just how much the federal government should do for the electorate, read this essay about Davy Crockett and his views on federally funded welfare.  Spoiler alert - It's always easier to be compassionate with someone else's money. Here’s an excerpt:

 "There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House (of representatives)  many very wealthy men – men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased – a debt which could not be paid by money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

Please read it all - it’s worth it.

Reich: Hating Government is now unpatriotic!

 I was slumming over at HuffPo and found this gem from Robert Reich's blog post on June 26. In it, Reich cleverly pens a new moniker for conservatives, he now calls us Regressives (the opposite of Progressive I suppose). Anyway, one paragraph just stunned me because he is not even pretending anymore concerning the role of government in American's lives. Here it is and I will break it down sentence by sentence to show just what's in store for us if we give Obama another term :

True patriots don't hate the government of the United States. They're proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.

First Sentence: So it's now unpatriotic to hate the government and by extinction a true patriot is one who loves the government? Could this be any more Orwellian. What's next, mandatory 2 minutes of hate each day? Mandatory love letters to Dear Leader? Sorry Robert bu the Government works for the people NOT the other way around.

Second Sentence: Patriots are proud of government? No Robert, patriots are NOT proud of government per se, patriots are proud of America and the leading role we play in creating wealth through equal opportunity. Hate to break it to you sir but government does none of those things. In fact in every single instance where the government sticks its nose in the market they invariably create unequal opportunity and inefficiencies - just take a gander at ANY green jobs initiatives the Obama administration has endeavored to force down the taxpayer's throats subsidize.

Third Sentence: Our men and women in uniform risked their lives for Government? Really? I mean just Really? You know way back in the 80s when I was in uniform I'm pretty sure that I wasn't serving it to save the government. If I remember correctly I was there to uphold the Constitution of the United States and everything it stands for - boiled down to one work - FREEDOM.

Forth Sentence: Special interest groups you say Robert? Yeah we regressives worry about special interest groups like the greenies, and both the Public and Private Sector Unions. Yeah there's a good patriot.

Fifth Sentence: Patriots work to improve the U.S. Government. Sorry Robert but true patriots do NOT work to improve government and to do so suggests servitude - rater true patriots work to improve themselves but unfortunately your brand of 'patriots' are making it harder and harder to do as the government has increasingly butted into our lives through regulation and executive fiat.

Look, our founding fathers were fearful of government's overreach and specifically designed the constitution to limit the role government can (and should) play in our lives. For evidence, look no further than the preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It clearly states in the first three words that the power of this constitution starts and stops with THE PEOPLE.

But Reich is not finished, his next paragraph tries to paint conservatives regressives as unpatriotic because we - wait for it - 'loath' government.

But regressive Republicans loathe the government -- and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it's no longer capable of doing much of anything. Tea Partiers are out to gut it entirely. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be "drowned in a bathtub."

Um, golly that does sound unpatriotic - I mean who wouldn't want the government to take care of all of us and essentially making us 'equal' (not to mention completely depended upon Uncle Sam)? What Reich and his ilk fail to realize is that it is essential that every American have equal opportunity. What each of us make of that opportunity is our business NOT the federal government's. To quote Ronald Reagan:

"I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

I think that about sums up the counter argument pretty well. Reich sees government as the be all and end all. Conservatives Regressives see government as a necessary evil much as the founding fathers did. 

Unfortunately we are now at a cross roads in our history. We are about to tip over the abyss where there is no turning back. In November we have the choice to say no to the ever insatiable government or we ride straight into the abyss never to return.

The real class warfare: Government vs. The People

With off scripted comments like "the private sector is doing fine, it's the public sector that needs help", it is very clear exactly how Obama views both economics and politics. His incessant attack on private business and constant desire to bail out unions and local governments should lead everyone to the inescapable conclusion that this president sees government (in all its forms) as the answer to every single social and economic problem. There is no middle ground with this administration.

Chief among governments tools to control the masses are taxation, regulation and executive orders. And boy has this administration unloaded on the country with both barrels. Consider this; since Obama has taken office thousands of new regulations have been issued costing the public billions in bureaucracy and additional compliance costs. Everything from stopping the XL pipeline to putting coal companies out of business. On the tax front, now that the court has upheld O-Care, the electorate can expect no less $1.7 trillion to support ACA alone. That's on top of new taxes that will begin in 2013. Oh and don't forget the huge increase at the end of this year if the Bush era tax cuts are not extended. For more, here is a list of all the tax hikes from the One.

How does all this help the Government class? It gives them control over every aspect of our lives. Look who is benefiting during the worst post war recession. Unemployment rate for PEU is around 4% while the private sector is stuck north of 8%. On average, government workers are paid much better than their private sector counterparts with better fringe benefits. None of this is by accident. Statist like this administration and their allies in the media and congress see this as 'the right thing to do'. They are convinced that the government is right in all things large and small. The more they can intrude in individual's lives, curb individual freedoms and in effect control the masses through regulation, taxation or putting them on the dole in some fashion the easier it will be for us uneducated masses to fall in line to the progressive way of thinking.

In this utopia the all-knowing elitist sits atop the mountain while the morlocks electorate toil in the coal mines windmill farms to support their well deserved lavish life styles.

We have a very clear choice to make in November at all levels of government. If we don't put a stop to this expansion of government then we will lose our freedoms and the American Dream.