OH no. Not again. Shoot me now.
Posted on 09/30/2003 7:51:27 AM PDT by Sir Gawain
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Our servants have given us a tax cut. Does that strike you as odd? During a speech in Indianapolis on September 5, the president, in talking about how his tax relief plan would help bring us out of the recession, made a very curious admission. He said, "By the way, it's your money, not the government's." When you've "got your money to spend, and you're circulating it around, it has an effect on the economy." [1] We've noticed. But I have a question: Since it's our money, why aren't we deciding how much government should have — if any — instead of the other way around? Isn't that what ownership implies? President Bush spent a good portion of his speech naming names, telling his audience how the Jones or the Olson family would spend their $800 or $1,900 to achieve "peace of mind" and at the same time help jump-start the economy. Apparently when government spends, Jones doesn't get a peaceful feeling, nor do economic fires stay burning for long. If government could figure out a way to produce wealth — like most of us have to — it wouldn't have to plunder it through taxation, inflation, and pseudo-borrowing. I have a proposal. Why don't we stay within constitutional limits for a change and let each of us take ownership of the wealth we produce? Instead of giving us nominal tax cuts, government will be obliged to sell its services on the market. We'll voluntarily fund it to do what we want it to do, and no more. Otherwise, the pack of thieves inside the Beltway will continue their orgy until we're flat on our backs. What I'm suggesting is nothing more than implementing Bush's desire to "run government like a business." Let's make it a real business. In the non-criminal world, we deal with businesses voluntarily. We don't let them swipe our income and force us into debt so they can indulge a spending mania. But by submitting to Leviathan, we now have budgets and debt in the trillions of dollars, and annual deficits in the hundreds of billions. And what do we get for it? Coerced wealth transfers from producers to parasites — a process good for buying votes, crippling business, corrupting culture, and impoverishing future generations. That alone should be motivation for at least trying to make government a market institution. In an interview the same day as his speech, the president talked about what a good job he and Congress have done "enhancing budget discipline in Washington." [2] He defines budget discipline as increasing discretionary spending by only 4%, "absent, of course, any supplemental [spending] that will be needed for Iraq and Afghanistan." If Washington's philosophy of discipline infects the military, soldiers will sleep till noon and boast about rising early. Any time government tries to help us, there's usually a catch. The Bush tax relief is no exception. In his speech he talked about the different parts of the deficit, attributing about a quarter of it to his tax bill. To avoid a riot, he didn't explain what he meant. He knows federal spending continues to climb, and therefore government had to borrow funds to cover the tax cut. Who did it borrow from? Take a look in the mirror. As Mises Institute's Jeffrey Tucker explains, it's as if someone gave you money by borrowing from a bank and forging "your signature on a co-signed note." [3] Your tax cut is that loan. This has got to stop. If our ultimate goal is to get government running like an honest business, we have to end its legal monopoly of our monetary system and curb deficit spending. Although economists of the Austrian school have defended sound money and opposed central banks for nearly a century, the fight has lately started to heat up. Gene Epstein, economics writer for Barron's, has been calling for abolition of the Federal Reserve. On July 25, Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced The Honest Money Act (HR 2779), which calls for repeal of legal tender laws. As Dr. Paul notes, "The advantages given banks and other financial institutions by our fiat monetary system, which is built on a foundation of legal tender laws, allow them to realize revenues that would not be available to these institutions in a free market. This represents legalized plunder of ordinary people." [4] Long before he became chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan described deficit spending as "simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth." [5] If he would articulate that view once again, he might save us all a lot of agony. We may not ever see a voluntarily-funded government, but eliminating the Fed would move us closer to that ideal. References1. President Bush Discusses the Economy in Indianapolis, here 2. An interview with President Bush, here 3. Thanks for the Tax Cut, Sort Of, Jeffrey Tucker, here 4. Bring Back Honest Money, Rep. Ron Paul, here 5. Gold and Economic Freedom, Alan Greenspan, here George F. Smith is currently marketing his screenplay, Eyes of Fire: Thomas Paine and the American Revolution. He can be reached at gfs543@bellsouth.net. |
Because you live in a Republic not a Democracy.
Only some businesses.
I love this idea. Not sure how easy it would be to implement. For example, if there weren't enough people to fund a war, would we simply not go to war? That might not always be the best thing, as the American people are often swayed by the loudest voice and what 'feels' good.
True. In addition, the government is not (or at least should not be) a for-profit organization.
I pull out of the driveway, ready to pay my twenty-five cents to the toll keeper to drive down my local street. He informs me that his business no longer takes "US" currency. I argue that's all I have. He says "turn around and come back with gold". What can I do? I park my car and start down the sidewalk. Luckily, the Sidewalk toll keeper still takes dimes. I walk to the coin store and pay $7.85 to the various toll keepers on the sidewalks I take.
At the coin store, I try to buy $100 in gold in 1/100 of an ounce increments. But the store keep tells me that since the mint has shut down, he, too, will no longer take US coins and will only barter with food -- one cow, one ounce of gold.
When I get home, I get a letter from my personal soldier -- he tells me he's quitting the army, and that I will need to hire a replacement. Oh, great....
You get the idea. Sorry, this kind of system is an unworkable pipe dream. You can try to cut out the worst of the waste. You can't run government like a business. It would drive you to insanity if you ever tried.
If it is a failure, why should it endure?
Or in the words of Jefferson..
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The US government must endure.
No matter what the cost?
Exactly; that's in the nature of things.
The question is, why do we permit this 'institution' to have anything to do with schools, or hospitals, or poor people, or indeed, anything that doesn't require killing and destruction.
Why? To collect taxes and oppress the states? I don't remember seeing perpetual union in the Constitution.
If it is a failure, why should it endure?
Our government is the best system available. We could quibble over tweaks (the amendment process, term limits, electoral college ) to the process, but basically we have the best system yet divised. There is simply no justification for getting rid of it. We the people retain all the power necessary to have the government we prefer. If it fails, we vote again, and try again. We don't dissolve it. We don't let it die. A failed pizzaria goes out of business and is gone forever. The US government endures good times and bad.
OH no. Not again. Shoot me now.
That is an excellent point. Business exist for a reason. You can't function like a business without business motives.
I can't imagine a scenario where the cost of maintaining our system of government is worse than losing it. We are free people.
I can't imagine a scenario where the cost of maintaining our system of government is worse than losing it. We are free people.
Well, our forefathers did. As for being a "free people," I guess that depends. Compared to people in China, we are most definitely free. Compared to U.S. citizens prior to 1900, not so much.
All tolled.. it now takes 60% of our income.
The men who run it are corrupt.
The "reciever constitutency" now outnumber the "contributer constituency".
There is nothing behind the money but smoke and mirrors.
Each passing year brings more curtailment of rights and liberty.
Soon, the only means of defense we have against it (firearms) will be gone.
I don't think there's any justification for KEEPING it.
I would say we are just as free. Whatever power has been transferred or added to the government has been done with the people's blessing. We can change it at our pleasure, same as always.
Compared even to colonial subjects of the British Crown who revolted over a 1/2 cent tax... we are slaves.
The "reciever constitutency" now outnumber the "contributer constituency".
That's a people problem, not a system of government problem. What should we do? Slaughter the receivers? Build a wall they can't get around? All you end up with is the same old system with the same old problem (people.) In our system, the only thing keeping us back is ourselves.
Buncombe. Colonial subjects didn't vote for king. They didn't hold accountability for the taxers. If you don't understand that, you understand nothing about our government.
Something happened in the adminstration of FDR that made it impossible to change.
The notion that people could elect representatives for the express purpose of voting themselves money from the public trust was legitimized...
Since that time, promises of "free stuff" have been the lifeblood of all politicians.
They like the power... they ain't giving it up.
"The people" like the free stuff, and they ain't giving it up.
That leaves only those who have to pay for all the free stuff. And they're now outnumbered by the people with their palms extended...
Collision course...
There is nothing inherently good about being oppressed by someone who was voted into office by the majority of your countrymen.
Democracy (absent the restraint provided by rights) is the worst form of government imaginable.
Respect the rights of individuals, absolutely and objectively.
Any governmental construct which does not do this, is an absolute failure.
We don't have democracy, though we do use democratic mechanisms. What makes our system right and good is not that oppressive laws sometimes get passed. That only makes our government similar to every other that's ever been tried. What makes our system right and good is that we the people retain the power to alter our government, to repeal laws, to hold our elected officials accountable, etc. Your beef isn't with the American republic. It's with humanity. And OWK, this problem, I am sorry to say, is incurable. We do the best we can.
We're not supposed to.
And many a clever internet fella will jump right in and say we don't.
But we do.
Every restraint against the whims of the majority is effectively gone.
We don't even bother with the pretense any more.
My beef is with the bastardization of the notion of rights promulgated by the once-promising American republic, which resulted in the human disaster you see before you.
Our nation steals from those who would provide for themselves, to subsidize whores, drug addicts, bums, lazy do-nothings, and countless other undesired things.
And in so-doing, it incentivizes irresponsibility, while penalizing the responsible.
Do this for a few generations, and you have the mess you see before you.
It's what you might call unfair competition. The government can put any private business out of business through head to head competition. You might prefer to believe it's the other way around, but you don't want government in business for itself.
No, but someday governments might be run by real businesses.
Can't have the one discussion without the other. Not gonna bite.
That is what they say.
This would be the American version of the socialist dream of a total state that swept through the world at that time. IMO, the Great War of 1914-18 led the West to lose confidence in liberal civilization as an adequate organizing principle in the 'New Era'.
In Russia, Germany, Italy, and America, and in time in China, Western Europe, and then the rest of the world as well, the modern, progressive vision of social perfection won out over traditionalism in any form. Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, The New Deal - all were national versions of a more universal utopian quest.
All socialist systems fail, ultimately, even American Socialism.
The question is, can we deconstruct American Socialism peacefully and legally, through consciousness-raising followed by bold political acts, before it all collapses on our heads?
First, of course, we would have to convince people that the socialist features of American government are, in fact, socialist. That will be a toughie.
Perhaps the question answers itself.
Not hopeful.
I should qualify my own statement as well.
I'm not hopeful that the situation will right itself peacefully.
I am hopeful that after the fall, we will beign again.
So do all regimes of relatively high liberty.
This, too, shall pass.
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