The Age of Obama certainly has given new life to the phrase “land of opportunity.” The good times are rolling… for the government and its bureaucracies. Do not think everyone has suffered from the recession. The percentage of government employees making more than $100,000 has leapt from 14% to 18% since the recession began. In the Department of Transportation alone, the number of people earning more than $170,000 grew from 1 to 1,690. Do not fear private citizens, the President also wants to help you. Thus, in his State of the Union Address, he delivered this gem with his characteristic upturned chin: “To help working families, we’ll extend our middle class tax cuts. But at a time of record deficits, we will not continue tax cuts for oil companies, for investment fund managers, and for those making over $250,000 a year. We just can’t afford it.”
How dare those oil companies think that they can keep the money they earn, when the Federal Government is in such dire need? Have they no heart? Would they simply let the Federal government go hungry? How dare those hardworking Americans think their earnings belong in their pockets? Where would those productive people get such crazy ideas? Why yes, we did fight a War of Independence to create a country in which the government served at the request of the people, but that was over 230 years ago. While the Founders meant for the Constitution to be the blueprint of government, they had no idea a later generation would include such brilliance as Pelosi, Bush, Frank, Specter, Graham, Boehner, and Obama. Who needs the Constitution when you have a Congress and White House full of intellectual elites?
The American people are living under tyranny. Our Constitution and freedoms have been taken over without a single shot fired. We have proved to Benjamin Franklin we cannot keep it. Instead of Redcoats, we have red tape. Instead of King George III, we have King Government. Every day that the Federal government operates, the Constitution turns more and more into a simple piece of parchment signed by men who did something long ago. Man has the God-given right of individual freedom. Now, we have given up absolute individual freedom for collective security and general welfare, but we have not given up freedom. The Constitution does not restrict citizens, but government. In today’s world, the government restricts citizens most notably through taxes. Every tax dollar the government collects and every dollar the government spends is a loss of freedom. In 2010, we are projected to lose $3.72 trillion worth of freedom. Our country is bleeding out, and, instead of packing the wound with gauze, the government just cuts deeper. Obama and his dream team want more—more government health care, more government controlled businesses, more government run schools, more government welfare and a whole lot more. And for the government to get more, guess who has to get less? The American worker. This does not quite seem to be the vision of the founders.
Let’s put aside the Constitutional and moral arguments against big government for the moment. Is there any evidence that our multi-trillion dollar behemoth of a government is effective in what it sets out to do? Is the country receiving multi-trillion dollar worth work? Are we getting what we pay for? We have had a war on poverty since 1964 and a war on drugs since 1969? How are we doing? How much is the Department of Education worth? $47 billion? Because that is what their 2010 budget is as American students lag further behind their international peers. How about the SEC? Were they not all over Bernie Madoff once $50 billion disappeared? How about the Department of Energy or NASA? Surely, those nuclear physicists and aeronautical engineers can be counted on for efficient results. Not quite. NASA put a man on the moon within a decade of its founding but, in the subsequent forty years, has been most recognized for blowing up two space shuttles, losing Mars rovers and breaking the bank for the International Space Station. Meanwhile, our big-bomb babysitters at the Department of Energy could not be bothered to lock their doors so the Chinese have repeatedly walked off with our nuclear secrets. How about the CIA, FBI, and the whole lot of alphabet soup government intelligence agencies? We nearly had an intelligence agency for each 9/11 hijacker, yet they still managed to cut the country’s throat. We have an entire agency devoted to patrolling our borders, but their eyes and ears have apparently missed more than thirteen million aliens walking right across our border. While the government may cost $3.72 trillion in 2010, it certainly is not worth $3.72 trillion. Can we get our money back?
Bobby DesPain’ 11 is a biology major from St. Louis, MO. Contact him at bodespain@davidson.edu.
Be the first to comment on this article!