Last week politicians in Washington made a few things clear
about how they really feel about the state of the union. First,
they are beginning to hear the growing discontent with the size
and scope of government and the broken promises that keep piling
up. Certain events in Massachusetts recently made that statement
loud, clear and unavoidable. In the face of those events, the
powers that be made the determination that some populist rhetoric
was in order, and the idea of a spending freeze in Washington
was proposed, albeit with several caveats. These caveats to
the proposed spending freeze ensure that we are not at any real
risk of actually doing anything about spending.
First of all is timing. It wouldn't go into effect until 2011,
which allows plenty of time to increase spending levels quite
a bit before they are frozen. If the administration really understood
and cared about our spending problems they would not freeze
spending a year from now, but cut spending immediately and significantly.
But, spending cuts almost never happen in Washington, and they
are not likely now or a year from now -- if the politicians
have anything to say about it.
The second caveat is the huge areas of the budget that are
shielded from this freeze. The entire State Department budget
is exempt, as are all entitlements, all military industrial
spending and almost all foreign aid. Fully 7/8 of federal spending
is excluded from this freeze, and some areas to be frozen were
actually set to decrease, which means a freeze actually guarantees
a higher level of spending.
Especially insulting is the idea that in spite of our own fiscal
problems at home, taxpayer dollars will continue to be sent
overseas in the form of foreign aid where it often does more
harm than good. When need is demonstrated to Americans and they
can afford it, they can be counted on for a tremendous outpouring
of private, voluntary charity to worthy aid organizations, as
we recently saw in Haiti. By contrast, government-to-government
aid is taken from the poor by force and too often enriches the
corrupt. It is counterproductive and wasteful. But the idea
of eliminating, freezing, or reducing foreign aid is not up
for serious debate any time soon.
The third caveat is what is included in the freeze that would
make it politically impossible to pass Congress, for example
air traffic controllers salaries, education, farm subsidies
and national parks.
I do not necessarily want a cut in spending in this country
-- I just want to change who does the spending. The spending
should be done by the people who earn the money, if they choose,
and on what they choose, without any government interference.
That is what makes the economy work. Politicians should stick
to the very limited roles given them by the constitution instead
of allocating such a sizeable portion of our capital and intervening
through regulations and tax policy. But because politicians
have disregarded the constitution, and the people have no idea
what rule they will break next, there is already a very real
spending freeze underway in this economy, by the people. If
government would stick only to what it was authorized to do,
and leave the rest to the people, most of these problems would
resolve themselves.
"When the people find they can vote themselves
money, that will herald the end of the republic."
- Fall Of The Republic - Buy
the DVD here
