There is little we find more abhorrent than when our heroes turn out to be villains. We are rightly abhorred by stories of long-suffering mothers who were discovered to be intentionally poisoning their children, teachers who molest their students, health-care workers who take lives, pastors who seduce and rob their followers, and police officers who assault and harass rather than protect and serve. Equally disturbing are the all too frequent stories of when arsonists turn out to be firefighters. While it may seem reasonable to assume that these twisted firestarters joined volunteer fire departments (which is generally where they are found) because of their lust for the inferno, there is some evidence that their pyromania actually develops as a result of their firefighting activity. Fighting a fire is a rush that is relatively rare in these suburban and rural areas, and like a drug where the first hit is free, the rush can be addictive. When the action is slow, the firestarter creates the disaster that brings the rush. No doubt the arsonist was unbalanced to begin with, but without the fire department they might just have become your obnoxious neighbor who’s always starting drama.
Likewise with the people we elect to be our leaders. We expect them to work hard to find solutions to the problems that arise in our society. How frustrating it is to us when those we elect to “put out fires” become the very ones who are starting them. That’s why character does matter. Temptation is great in the halls of power, and the man who might have been a relatively harmless greasy lawyer, when vested with the power of high office, becomes Sheldon Silver.
The fire starting doesn’t have to be criminal to be troublesome. Authority untempered by character veers inexorably away from liberty. The exercise of power is like drinking sea water, it does little to quench the thirst and eventually leads to madness. When that power is used in the pursuit of policies that destroy the fabric of our Republic, then the fire grows exponentially.
Having instituted policies that are emaciating the middle class, President Obama ironically utilized the State of the Union address to tout his commitment to “middle class economics”. The arsonist dons his firefighting gear in an attempt to convince us that he is here to help, but his solutions only look like more gasoline. Little mention was made of how the middle class would be enabled to keep more of the money they earned, or how they might earn more. Instead it seemed that the President’s definition of middle class economics is an expansion of the welfare state. Doing his best Oprah imitation, his solutions for the most part centered around government give-aways; “free college for everybody!”, “free day-care for you!”, “free sick days!”… but “free” is never free. As it has been from the first, taxing our way to prosperity is always proposed as something the “rich” will be required to finance. The problem, as it has always been, is that the “rich” really like their money, and they don’t just let us take it from them; in fact, they are quite clever at finding ways to keep it! The government takes what they can from the rich, but that is never enough; so having empowered them to take the money, the middle class finds themselves in the tax man’s crosshairs. In itself, government taking your money, and then giving it back to you in the form of bridges, roads, and defense or even college, day-care, and food stamps would not seem to be a horrible idea. Like a direct deposit IRA, the money would be taken from us before we have the opportunity to waste it on toys or poker games, and saved for us for something more important. But it doesn’t quite work that way, as every dollar taken from us needs to be split between those who have no dollars to give, those who are cheating the system, government waste, government corruption, government inefficiency, cronyism, stupid spending… and the crumbs left of that dollar are what we derive the benefits of, at the price of a piece of our liberty
The true cost of imposed taxes is more than what we pay on April 15. A simple mind might truly believe that employer paid expenses like social security tax and health care expenses do not infringe on our income, but of course they do. When you include social security, income taxes, sales tax, property tax, school tax, fuel tax, and all the hidden effects of taxes others must pay, I think it would be a conservative estimate to say that taxes probably eat up about 50% of middle class income. Governments must be funded, but are we getting our money’s worth in the present system? We could do a lot of good with that money!
IMHO: Running funds through the government is invariably the least efficient way of providing services. This is why government should be limited to only essential services for which there are no other solutions. Mixing money with power is always a volatile combination, and care must be given to insure that the ones charged with putting out fires aren’t the ones starting them to begin with. Government becomes the leviathan that consumes wealth, and with that black hole we can’t tax the rich enough to bring prosperity to the rest of the nation. Redistribution of wealth through taxation or socialism has been proven over and over again not to be the answer. Wealth inequality needs to be addressed in other more creative ways, and it begins with robust capitalism and an economy unencumbered. It would be good to have a President with new ideas grounded in reality, rather than the same recycled tripe trotted out annually to score political points among the naive and ill-informed. People might actually start watching the State of the Union again!
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Ronald Reagan
