- Thomas Jefferson
For an interesting contrast fast forward to today:
"the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."9
- Senator Barack Obama, 2001 public radio interview
It's kind of incredible just how far from the principle of limited government this country has strayed. Just think about all the alphabet soup groups that have a large effect, positive or negative, on the daily lives of millions of Americans. (USDA, ATF, FBI, FDIC, CIA, SSA, FAA, TSA, USPS, the list is endless). Or the government programs that so many depend on for housing1, sustenance2, and healthcare3 to name a few. Around only 1/3 of the citizens of this country currently pay taxes*, much of which goes to support the other 2/3 in various ways.
Out of the five largest items in the federal budget, the two largest, for a total of approximately 1.5 Trillion dollars4, are Federally paid or subsidized healthcare(medicare/caid) and retirement(SS). For dramatic effect, the budgets of both Medicare and Social Security are each substantially larger than the entire DOD5 budget while fighting two wars. The federal budget deficit for the calendar year is around 1.43 Trillion, simple math shows that the federal budget minus our two biggest entitlement programs equals around a 70Billion$ budget surplus, which is around 700$ per-taxpayer. Government subsidies can be seen everywhere, the two examples I have provided are just the two most expensive. Billions more taxpayer dollars go to more programs than I could possibly chronicle here. Taxpayer support of failure6 must end before the nearly 13Trillion dollars of public debt can begin to be paid off.
Any parent, boss, or teacher understands at some level the simple fact that people respond positively to a reward based system7. Giving a child/employee perks for doing something serves to reinforce that what they are doing is right, and that they should continue, or improve, their current work-ethic/behavior. The same principle applies to government handouts, except rather than reinforcing and encouraging good behavior, they simply create the idea that it's easier and safer to rely on the government than yourself. Another day I will likely explore the scariness of that idea, but for now suffice it to say that nothing is free. We humans, like dogs, understand what happens if we bite the hand that feeds us. Dependence is the germination of the seeds, from which the tree of tyranny sprouts.
TJ understood the principle that the more you hand out, the more you must first take. He understood how taking from the productive and giving to the un-productive leads to no one actually producing anything. He understood, from our colonial8 experience, that dependence is anathema to liberty and freedom. With the philosophy embodied in this statement, he is advocating for American citizens to be completely independent, especially from their own corruptible government. Unlike many after him, he respected the constitution, the American people, and the power of the Individual spirit even after having held power.
*All statistics referenced in this article regarding population, number of taxpayers, debt, and spending are from the US debt clock if not linked to another source within the text. Most of the numbers used have been rounded for easier understanding.
1 Subsidized housing and bullying banks into losing money so that people can own a house they cannot afford started on a large scale with FDR's new deal. Some economists point to the government mandated sub-prime loans that forced banks such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (both originally publicly owned) to lose billions, so people could "own" a home, as a major factor that helped to cause our current recession.
2 As of November 2009, over 36 million, or one eighth of Americans were receiving foodstamps, which is basically free food courtesy of Uncle Sam. Disregarding 6 million or so abusing the system(just a guess no stats around), that leaves 30 million Americans, around 10% of the population completely dependent on the Federal government to eat.
3 As I outlined earlier, subsidized and free healthcare is already the single largest item in the federal budget at approximately 766 Billion$. Sadly enough the newly passed bill which will subsidize health insurance for anyone earning less than 30,000$ per year, among other costly endeavors, is not contributing one cent to that total currently.
4 If you were to think of our entitlement spending(just SS/Medicare/caid) as a nation, and think of it's monetary value as this "nation's" GDP, it would rank 8th in the world. In simpler words we spend more money on healthcare/SS already than 183 Nations' respective GDP for 09'. The aforementioned spending tops the GDP's of, notably, Russia +250B, Canada +200B, Saudi Arabia +1.1T, UAE(think Dubai) + 1.3T.....
5 The Department of Defense budget includes every cent spent on every branch of the military. This includes black ops budgets, equipment, maintenance, salaries etc...
6 I understand that getting old or sick does not constitute failure. My argument is simply that having a guaranteed safety net just encourages people to make bad decisions. Charity/Philanthropy should be left to the private sector, not be facilitated by the government. People spending their own money on a worthy cause are always more generous than a government proxy, not to mention more money actually makes it to the cause when spent privately. See this as a decent argument against Federal control/mandates on retirement plans. More on that later.
7 No, I do not think of government as a parental figure, or our boss, nor do I feel it should act as one. However I do feel that the parental/boss example contributes to the argument.
8 See the Declaration of Independence for plenty of examples of how King George III tried to make sure we were dependent on him for everything. A notable example; "cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world" ensured that we could not sell or buy anything internationally as colonists at a nearly fair value.
9 I do not feel that I took that quote out of context. The way I read the transcript of the conversation O' was advocating for redistribution of wealth and federal mandate/precedent for the government to have to do things "on your behalf". Which of course puts the two quotes and more importantly, philosophies directly at odds with one another.
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