Currently our government is very busy “giving” us things. Healthcare, protection from global warming, extended unemployment benefits for those who have lost their jobs, cash for clunkers to buy new, often imported, automobiles, food stamps for workers who have had their hours scaled back to levels that do not sustain their cost of living, mortgage “bailouts” for people who have lost their jobs (usually resulting in co-ownership with the government in your home, or a “balloon” in five years – the very type of financing that contributed so heavily to the mess). However, it is also turning a deaf ear to the things Americans are saying we really want: jobs, fair pay, the right to keep most of what we earn and pay our own way, the right to provide for our families and the right to make our own choices.
It is no coincidence that the percentage of American jobs offshored in the last decade is equal to the rise in unemployment figures over the same time period. There is a direct statistical relationship. Americans have been demanding action be taken to stop this madness for over a decade. Congress has not only turned a deaf ear, they have worked to encourage the activity. When the newly jobless Americans had their homes foreclosed on and foreclosure rates began to soar, Congress blamed the “reckless consumers” and loan companies rather than assessing how their own failure to protect our jobs and economy contributed to it.
Why? What is the motivation to make us jobless and homeless and then “give” us healthcare? Who are they working for? It doesn’t seem like it is you or me.
Unfortunately, as more and more Americans are denied the right to work and earn a living, they are finding themselves facing severe hardships and become more receptive to take what the government is “giving” them, if not actually demanding it. An individual by nature is self sufficient. One does not demand “gifts” from the government without first having been denied the right to earn his own way and being forced to believe he can no longer provide for himself.
Therein lies the problem. The government cannot give us anything without taking it from us first. And when they give it back to us in whatever form that may be – healthcare, subsidized housing, food stamps, etc, fantastic amounts are siphoned off the top to administer the programs, strings are attached to limit our choices and chances are you and me will see none of it at all because they ran of money to fund it before they got to us.
The actual statistics are telling. Our economy is a mess. It was the government’s job to prevent this. The Federal Reserve Bank was created to prevent it. Both have clearly failed…. repeatedly! Now they are telling us private industry failed and are busy nationalizing private corporations. I will not defend corporations here, some are guilty of crimes, however, it was the government’s role to oversee the actions of businesses and prevent crimes from occurring that would damage the economy and the American public. They failed at this miserably. State governments, which unlike the Federal Government do not have the power to print money at will, are bankrupt and they are leaning harder on the shrinking number of employed taxpayers to cover the loss. With each job they helped to ship overseas, they lost taxpayer dollars they themselves needed to run the government operations and they are now asking us to bail them out through increased taxes, new taxes, increased fees, more aggressive assessments of punitive fees and more .
Our government has become increasingly involved in healthcare, particularly since the sixties with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and the thousands of programs since then. What did they give us? An industry where costs are inflating faster than any other industry in the country and constantly reduced access to healthcare. At a time when transparency and accountability are being demanded by the American people, President Obama attempted to push through his healthcare plan without even letting the American public know what the plan was!
We need to get things back on the right track here. It is far more important that our government work to preserve individual freedoms, rights and most of all our right to earn a living, provide for ourselves, and to make our own choices than it is for them to devise new ways to “give” us things. Government funded healthcare may sound like a solution to a problem, but one must remember that legislative changes of that scope are done at fantastic cost. Someone is funding the movement, someone expects to make hundreds of billions from the resulting legislation - and they expect to make that money by extracting it from your pocket without your consent. This isn’t just about healthcare. It is simply the issue at the front lines right now. This will be found as the common denominator in most legislative activities. Each time your elected officials decide to “give” you what some vested interest says you “need” they have to take it from you first. Who benefits? Not you.
It would have behooved the residents of ancient Troy to look the Trojan Horse in the mouth before accepting the “gift” into the city. The same holds true with each “gift” we receive from our government. Beware! We cannot afford many more “gifts” from the government. Such gifts only work to line the pockets of the few at the expense of the many. It is time we demand a few less gifts and a lot more rights, including the right to be responsible for ourselves and make our own choices.
I will say it once again. The government cannot give us anything without taking it from us first.
Take a moment to write your elected officials and remind them who they work for. They have clearly forgotten that it is you!
