I heard an exasperated congressman say that people on unemployment spend 100% of the money they get in the economy, and therefore this is the best place money could be spent to stimulate growth, certainly better than extending tax cuts for those making more than $250,000. (For the record, I think it is better than building interstate off ramps to nowhere as individuals can make decisions about how to spend the unemployment benefit.) On the surface, this wealth redistribution argument sounds great, put money in the hands of people eager to spend it, instead of letting the wealthy hoard it, right? The devil is in the details. What they are suggesting is that setting money aside while paying someone to collect the tax and review the tax return, pay someone to account for it, pay someone to distribute it to the relevant agency, pay someone to distribute it to the state employment agencies, pay them to account for it, pay them to distribute it to relevant case account, and pay to distribute it to people who are not working, puts more people to work than the high income earner spending it themselves, or investing it or anything else they might do with it. The argument is that paying people to manage a government program produces more wealth than turning raw materials into finished products.

What’s my problem with this? I have a problem with the assumptions insinuated within the premise that the government pulling leaky buckets buckets of water from one end of the economy pool and dumping them in the other somehow lowers the level on one end and raises the level on the other. (Consider they are sucking water from the water-multiplying end of the pool.) The first assumption is that high income earners are less efficient at spending money in the economy than low income earners. Second, the assumption that paying for unemployment generates less unemployment. Third, the assumption that giving capital to consumers generates more capital than investing in production generates, so much so that it can cover the interest paid to borrow it. Finally, I take exception with the assumption that individual’s situations can be improved by applying a single solution to the group as a whole.

First, why do high income earners make the big bucks? Pick a reason. Half of you will say something like tenure, or favoritism, or just plain luck. Although the luck argument probably exists, it cannot be sustained, Chelsea Clinton asside; indeed none of them can, without one truth. Sustained employment exists when an employee produces more than they cost the employer for a sustained length of time. A private endeavor goes out of business if they pay more than they earn. The simple truth is that high income earners produce higher returns on their employer’s pay investment in them than does someone doing a minimum wage job could make for them. Otherwise, there would be no sustained high income earners. When faced with the decision of whether to hire a $300,000 employee or 2 employees making $150,000, the decision comes down to which situation makes it more likely that the company will survive. In short, that option which produces the most money in return. Raise the cost of having a $300,000 employee, via tax increases on those making more than $250,000, and you skew the decision slightly and get fewer $300,000 employees. In some cases, that means hiring more $150,000 employees which is good for out of work $150,000 employees. In some cases, the $150,000 option is not profitable. (The $300,000 employee may have been more profitable than the lower paid option by an amount which straddles the break even point.) Those businesses will stop conducting business, or move this business to another country to survive, firing all other American employees in both cases. This produces a net decrease in all jobs at all income levels, clustered near the tax break level of $250,000.

My next problem is with the idea that paying people to sit at home, or unsuccessfully look for work, keeps their money going in the economy even though they are not producing anything. Remember the bucketing of the pool water idea? Taking money out of the economy, or promising to do so by borrowing it, and then putting it back via the hands of entitlement recipients, does not create anything. Simply, there is no return on the investment. Just like friction in an engine, there are parasitic losses in doing this, and there is a time lag between when the taxes are known, and the payments put them back in circulation. Also, when you increase the cost of some activity, you get less of it, when you lower the cost of some activity, you get more of it. We tax tobacco and subsidize GM’s Volt with this conviction. Raising the cost of employing people, via taxes or future taxes via borrowing, reduces hiring, and eliminates the marginal businesses from the American economy. The marginal companies go under, or move away to survive, taking the remaining jobs with them. Concurrently, when you make it less costly to be unemployed, you get less effort to change that condition by the only person who can affect it, the unemployed. Of course some take any job as soon as they can, and some feel like they hit the lottery and would not take a high paying job until all the “free” money stops. Those people who did not need to work, or who were barely breaking even after paying the costs of getting to work and dressing for work, will stay home and take the unemployment payment. They are not immoral, in my opinion, they can simply add. Why get up each morning, come up with gas money ahead of the paycheck, and give up your day to spend time on the road, hire daycare, and loose an 8 hour day, when you can stay home for anything in the ball park of the same net income? Shame you say? Perhaps, but some of those working out of a feeling of obligation, not need, such as those whose spouses are able to pay the essential family expenses, will not work with the “unemployed” badge of honor shielding them from feeling shame. Encourage businesses to not hire people with promises of increased unemployment taxes while encouraging people to put off searching for a job with promises of benefit extensions, increases unemployment. Do a little research and see just how close to the end of unemployment payments people get, ON AVERAGE, when they miraculously find an acceptable lower paying job. People turn down lower paying jobs than they lost in hopes of finding a higher paying job than exists in their market, for as long as they are being paid to do so. When you make future job creation cost more, and current joblessness cost less, you get higher current unemployment and higher future unemployment in a downward spiral.

The next is one of my favorite pro-government-program arguments to dispute: the idea that low income people spend their money in such a way which creates more jobs than more affluent spenders do. In other words, 5 people who only make $20,000 a year do more to create jobs than a single person making $100,000 does. Ask yourself this, is a “poor” person more likely to buy things that are mass produced by machines, (pop tarts), or custom things that are handmade, (omelets)? Is a “rich” person more likely to buy cheaply produced food from a factory, (tater tots for home), or hire local kitchen staff to prepare more labor intensive, expensive food, (baked potato in a restaurant)? Come on, be honest. “Poor” people buy flour and make bread; “rich” people buy bread, and pay the baker. The affluent also invest in bakeries and bakery company stock. Another obvious question, which is more likely to have cash stashed in a shoebox under the bed, and which is more likely to have it in a bank account or invested in stocks? In other words, in preparation for the proverbial rainy day, who is more likely to have their available money in the economy and which is more likely to have it hoarded? Know anyone who thinks they will start saving and investing once they make a little more money? That is me. I can’t wait to make enough to hoard, all the while flexing my spending up and down to match my income. I doubt that this is a “poor only” phenomenon. I suspect that promising future tax increases by borrowing against future taxes, actually encourages the higher earners to hoard their money instead of spending it or investing and paying capital gains. Those who barely think now’s the time to invest, will switch over to the buy-gold-and-hoard side, removing their money from the economy. This money stays out of the economy until the capital gains tax rate is low enough. It has to be low enough to pay the double tax of cashing in gold and paying the tax, and investing in stocks and paying the tax again each year. Even if gold goes down, but by a lower percentage than the tax, it may not be sold. Which do you think makes gold rise, government spending or government frugality? See the catch 22 of raising taxes on the rich to “create or save” jobs?

The last assumption is at the core of the government spending v.s. private spending debate. The idea is that everyone on unemployment gets extended payments because someone will have a worse time if they don’t. My belief is that the national government should steer the national efforts, those which will benefit the most people, not those that will benefit any single person. Those who want to raise unemployment benefits agree with me, otherwise they would not suggest we extend every unemployed person’s benefit time. If they wanted to help individual situations, they would encourage and empower the people familiar with the individual. At a minimum they would leave the money in the states to pay out and eliminate several middle men. They would suggest local control of unemployment programs instead of single-location control from Washington DC. I question whether votes for extension is about helping a person or about looking like they want to help. Helping people can get you re-elected, so can looking like you are, and the two can only be contrasted in light of fact and principle and rejection of feelings and emotion. We will limit job growth for everyone via the promise of high taxes to cover debt service which produces nothing. We are willing to allow millions of new workers to suffer without a job, in order to believe that one previously employed person will not suffer having lost one. Why is a new employment ready person not important but one who held an over paid position, no longer needed, worthy of borrowing money from the Chinese?

More philosophically, consider this story. A man has $20 and stops at an intersection with 5 men sitting next to, “Will-work-4-food” signs. He rolls down his window and gives each $4. A dozen people driving by notice this act and applaud it. The 5 men buy burgers and eat. Next day, another man, also with $20, stops and asks if any are truly willing to go home with him and help him rake his leaves. 3 stand up and get in the car. He goes home with $20 worth of groceries and rakes leaves. A dozen neighbors notice and applaud the second man. The second man and the workers eat their share of the groceries, the three men remaining at the intersection get nothing.

The next day, both men collide with each other and die and can no longer offer up $20. Now that there is no longer either man to offer help, which dozen applauders is more likely to respond to signs of Will-work-4-food? Which of the men are more credible in the argument that they would work for food for what work there exists? In other words, which situation actually gave them opportunity to improve their lives and which situation actually encouraged others to employ the men? Most of us would agree that it is better to make a man a fisherman than to simply feed him fish.

So how can we claim to produce more fish when the fisherman supplies a government fish collector to give non-fishermen free fish?

It occurred to me that much is happening in the big-picture-philosophy world that contributes to the stress of some people. (Could it relieve the stress of some?) I recently had a discussion with one such person about their attic and property taxes. Specifically, each reassessment brings a new discussion about a storage room in the attic. It seems that the building plans show an alternate room in the attic. The alternate room was not finished when the house was built, but plywood was put down so the area could be used for storage. I’m certain many of you have space in your attic where you store stuff, (for lack of a better term.)

The situation is that each time the property is reassessed, it is based on the generic building plans, purchased from one of those plan books you can get al Lowe’s, not the actual building constructed. It would seem that this is easier that way, for the reassesser. Each time, a trip to the local tax office, a short wait in line, and the explanation that the information is already in the file, resets the floor area which establishes the amount of tax owed.

For some reason, this stuck in my craw. I can’t seem to shake it.

The tax is based purely on the assumption that the more you own, the more you are able (and obligated) to pay, every year. There is an income/wealth test for property ownership. If you cannot afford the tax then you are obligated to sell the property to someone who can. This skews property ownership towards the ones who have and against the ones who have not. The haves must take some of wealth they already have to pay for the property they intend to keep. Those who have not, must earn enough to pay income taxes and use a portion of what is left to acquire property. Then they must earn enough to pay income taxes and still have enough left to pay the property taxes. A person of moderate means often cannot inherit property and afford to pay the inheritance tax, income tax on their moderate income, and have enough to pay the recurring property taxes. There is an income/wealth test for inheritance.

How is it that the government is somehow entitled to more tax money, based simply on the wall treatment of an attic room? There is no link between that room, and any service the government provides. There is no link to the function of government. But that is not unusual; there is no link between sales taxes and the use of those taxes. So it took me a while to figure out why I could not let this one go. My conclusion is that property taxes are immoral. I believe that all confiscatory taxes are immoral.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it is easy to say such, and just as easy to discount such with the argument that there are legitimate functions of government, and that they must be funded. Even so, this is my conclusion: Just as tyranny is the opposite of freedom, the taking of a portion of a person’s property, for the simple reason that it exists, is an infringement on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Bear with me, this sounds a little like a math proof. You know the ones we had to learn in high school geometry? Ok, so nearly all of you just clicked the delete key. Kudos to you.

For the rest of you, show me where my logic fails. The founding fathers wrote the constitution, in part, to protect the ownership of private property. They believed, as I do, that the ability to keep the fruits of one’s labor is the basis for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The short version, if a person raises crops, just enough to survive, and cannot keep them, that person will starve. If a person can just feed themselves and the government takes the smallest portion, that person starves. Today, if a person lives on their own land, their own property, and never leaves, takes no service from the public at large but stays on their property for their entire life, they would loose that property in the name of supporting the common good as defined by those collecting property taxes. Today, a person is not free to live of their own devices. Today, a person who raises enough food to support themselves, has to raise enough additional to sell at market to pay the property taxes or have the property confiscated to pay said taxes.

The break even condition is unsustainable for the individual. One must make enough extra, be wealthy enough, to support the programs deemed needed by the governing body (street sweeping, welcome centers, etc.) or become a ward of that body. In the example I have chosen, the person who owns enough land to feed themselves and never leaves the property or takes any service from anyone outside their property, must sell a portion of what they raise to pay the taxes, and then presumably sign up for food stamps to eat. This person would have to give up feeding themselves to support the program that would feed them. That is, of course if they could qualify for food stamps and own property. In theory, this person would have to sell a portion of the property to pay the taxes and each year, the ability to feed themselves would diminish and a portion would have to be sold to make up the difference. Eventually, the property would be gone, and the person would be a ward of the state. This additional burden on the state routinely requires increases in revenue, which makes it more unlikely that a have not could earn enough to own property.

I call this unsustainable because you must either create enough wealth in excess of what it takes to survive at the government manipulated standard of living and pay for your share of the care of those who do not, or be one of those who do not. In other words, you must either be an excessive wealth producer and support the programs of the government or be a wealth consumer and survive on those programs. You cannot survive in the middle, there can be no sustained middle class.

A person living by one’s own labor, burdening no one else, totally free from owing anyone, is in a downward spiral. They would owe a portion of their property to the government for the simple reason that they exist and own property. Someone in the past, who earned excess wealth, (more than enough to feed themselves), paid for that property with money which was taxed as income if it happened in the last 70 years. But if for any reason the excess wealth production slows enough, to less than roughly two times that needed to live, and if they ceased to produce excess wealth to be used for government programs, the government will confiscate said property and put it in the hands of someone who will. The government comes first.

This person could loose their property because the assessor classifies attic storage space as “livable” space which moves them from the just-barely-feeding-themselves and funding the government category to the soon-to-be-a-ward-of-the-state category. I could not show up on their door and insist that they support my social agenda with a portion of their property. If I showed up with an armed person and insisted at gunpoint, I would go to jail. If I organized a municipality and showed up with a uniformed tax official and insisted that they pay a portion of the official’s salary with their property, I gain the power to imprison that person and take their property. The taking of property to spend on causes not supported by the person who just had their property taken, does not become moral when more than half of us vote together to do so. Theft by proxy is still theft.

I ask this: Are you free? Can you live alone on your own property? Are you free to live your life regardless of the unrelated decisions of someone else? I suggest you are not free. You only own your own property, keep your own income, pursue happiness, so long as you are allowed to do so. Your property is only yours if you are producing tax revenue in which case the government will “allow” you to keep it.

Are we moving toward freedom or tyranny? Can you still sell it all and go bankrupt to pay for medical procedures to save yourself or a loved one? Will that freedom be lost because it is deemed “unfair” or the process too expensive for the single payer to pay? Tyranny is the opposite of freedom. Which is more moral, freedom or tyranny?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/02/AR2010040204207.html

Mr. Stuever is correct in the assertion that this is not news, but he misses the point that much of what is paraded in front of us is not news. Bald children claiming to need S-CHiP expansion to get treatment is news(?) but the revelation that the family could afford health insurance but campaigned for federal aid expansion so they would not have to, is not (?), ad. nauseam on both sides.

But, there is one point of merit, veiled as he points out, that we are told daily that we cannot do inspiring things like help one another. We are told that Massachusetts cannot provide health coverage for all, only the federal government can do that. We are told that Virginia cannot regulate drilling off her shores, only the federal government can do that. We are told that the state of Utah cannot manage her lands, only the federal government can do that. We are told, although subtly, that people cannot do inspiring things, until they go to Washington.

So, he is correct that this is not news to most of us. But, that this particular show got any comment at all, indicates that the author knows that someone was trying to say something, (political perhaps, it is Palin after all?) but the fact that the author lumps it in with all the sunshine being blown at us indicates that the thinly veiled point was lost on him. Or, perhaps not, perhaps he would like to think it will be lost on his readers if he simply wills it.

The Great American Experiment followed the sacrifice of, “lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor” in defense of an idea. The idea that individuals, free from the tyranny of central command and control, protected their individual interests better than any unrelated protector, no matter how kind, caring or otherwise motivated. The Great American Experiment was funded, fought, and died for on the promise that freedom led to higher standards of living for everyone, greater innovation in business, agriculture, and every other aspect of life for everyone it touched, successful and failing alike. The government would be as limited as possible, the people as free as possible.

Carl Marx, believed the antithesis of these ideas. Marxism suggests that such freedom, and the fact that some people would be immensely more successful than others under such freedom, hurts the average person. Marx believed that for some people to succeed, others must fail, that the size of the pie is fixed, and who gets large pieces and who goes hungry is mostly random, except that dishonest people predisposed to fraud will skew things to their advantage. The typical honest person will suffer under the abuse of the dishonest. People are better served, in his theory, when each produce according to their abilities, and a central authority distributes according to one’s need. The average is better served when everyone follows the plan.

Every society in human existence has either answered to a central authority like a king, or had some system whereby the people chose their governors. In early history, a king who fought for the position was best able to fight to defend his people from invaders and pillagers, or to invade and pillage neighbors. Most were still farmers and hunters. Later, when technology progressed to the point where people could produce more than they consumed, trading came on the scene with the evolution of the middle man (middleous homosapien). This relied on fair play and people were hunted down and killed for foul play. Knowing who could be trusted and a person’s reputation became valued knowledge. Middleous man evolved to make a living off of what they knew instead of what they could grow or hunt. This only happened because there was enough excess produced to support people who did not directly hunt or gather food, make clothing, or build shelter, and there was efficiency in producing a couple of commodities where the climate was best suited to it and trading them for goods that could be more efficiently produced elsewhere. (This is why we raise beef and corn here, and they raise sugar cane in the tropics). It was almost unregulated. The middle men got together and formed colleges, or congresses, (groups of like minded people to serve a common end). Being a member of such could encourage producers and buyers to deal with you. The members of such groups would promise better and better prices to producers, and better and better quality to the buyers. Some would temporarily make a better living by such promises than from what they knew. They promised more than their competing middle men, until they could no longer produce and the group collapsed. They were replaced.

This system was ultimately replaced by the selection of fair play representatives (governors) by consensus. This made the selection based more on the perception of the candidate’s abilities than on actual performance. (Sound familiar?) Sometimes the selection was fair; sometimes it was coerced and intimidated. Indeed, control of all societies has been and is by governments chosen by a range of methods, with violent seizure of power after surrender on one end of the scale, and free and frequent elections on the other.

I am only concerned with the violent seizure method in that it is no more or less likely an end to any society, regardless of where their system currently lies along the scale, and is therefore mostly unpredictable. Such systems arise when the people are not able or willing to withstand its takeover. My concern is with the other end where America selects its government. Every society in human existence who chose their governors based on promises of representation have ultimately fallen to wasteful spending. The cliché is that they fell when the electorate voted themselves larger shares of the stores of grain than they were motivated to produce when fed with free grain. It is another of human’s natures. Until the mid 1900’s, these happenings were part of common education.

These are well known facts. In the pre-American world, kings tried to motivate their subjects with a system of taxes and entitlements. Prior to America’s founding, it was generally believed that anarchy would ensue without divinely inspired and chosen leaders. Many cultures still believe that today. Our founders believed that no one is more or less divinely created than the next, and that anarchy ensues without a divinely inspired population. They conceived a system whereby people could correct tyranny by choice. They conceived, debated, and persuaded the acceptance of a system that limited the power of the government to only that which the people authorize it to have. They demanded limits on government which could not be changed by the government serving those limits. They knew that human nature would compel elected officials to promise ever increasing rations from the public stores, and that once government control got sufficiently complicated, one size-fits-all policies would be the only way to manage the complexity thereby limiting innovation and individual motivation. They believed that nearly every government activity must be controlled locally, or fail.

So here we are. We stand at the cross roads where intellect faces human nature. On the one hand, intellect can rightly lead us to the conclusion that perfect management of a well motivated populace, provided for in accordance with the needs of each, eliminates suffering caused by bad decisions made by the individual. Human nature can lead us to accept Marx’s arguments without challenging the assumptions inherent in them. Marx’s utopic theory requires that human nature be resisted by the managers so that corruption does not foul the system, and that human nature be resisted by the managed so that defense of individual best interest no interfere with the common good even when contrary to individual good. Human nature explains why corruption is so common in countries with Marxist leaning systems. The self interest of the briber is provided for by the indulgence of the self interest of the bribed. Innovation is only relevant when conceived by or recognized by the managers and no incentive exists outside of ego for the innovator or the observant manager. Likewise, human nature leads us to vote ourselves larger shares of the public stores on the promises that “they” will be sufficiently taxed and sufficiently tolerant of the taxes to continue to produce grain undeterred. Human nature leads some to believe this despite the evidence to the contrary.

On the other hand, intellect can lead us to look for examples of both systems, socialist and free market, and determine which provides better conditions for the poor, or disadvantaged. Human nature would be to choose the best performing system.

Have we chosen the system whose theory stands up to rational debate when devoid of real world examples, or the system that has proven successful in practice despite being too complicated to fully explain every action rationally?

The choices, as I understand them are these: Recognize that we have the best medical system in the world BECAUSE the rich pay more than the poor, BECAUSE the rich have access to new treatment and technology before it is cheap enough for mass consumption; Recognize this it is this arrangement which makes medical care for the poor more available than it was a decade ago; Recognize that medical treatment of the poor is more available than it is in any other system in the world; Recognize that much of the medical treatment available to the world’s poor only exists as a result of the American medical system; Recognized that more treatments are available to the poor than would be if FDR had been successful in realizing socialized medicine; Recognize that a generation from now, the poor will have less access to as yet undiscovered treatments under socialized medicine than would be available if the rich continued to fund research and development; Recognize that socialism, Marxism, communism, statism, progressivism, liberalism, or however else you chose to label it, has led to the death of more people in the world than all other calamities combined; Recognize that because these systems rely on complete adherence to the common plan and surrender of the protection of individual defense of one’s best interest, violence and oppression are always used to control the population; Recognize that the wealth created by American entrepreneurs has funded the defense of most of the free world for two generations. Simply, choose to protect the rights of the individual to succeed or fail by one’s own decisions, unencumbered by agendas of social justice and wealth redistribution.

Or, choose the path chosen by every free society ever known. Choose the path dictated by emotion and human nature. Choose to bankrupt the country by trying to plan and provide an ever increasing array of goods and services, devised by a politically motivated committee that sets it own limits, provided to increasingly less motivated and demonized producers.

Will intellect win out over emotion? Am I wrong in my belief that I am on the side of intellect and not emotion? Is it arrogance that got us here in the first place, to believe that the human nature cycle of tyranny-escape-freedom-prosperity-guilt-entitlement-dependancy-tyranny can be short circuited without the pain of tyranny fresh in our minds? Are we destined to go down as the society arrogant enough to think that it manage all things for all people, just as the Romans did?

I hope not. I hope, that the success of the Great American Experiment thus far, can inspire us to not relinquish this prosperity and freedom in return for short term illusions of social justice. I hope that we recognize the success that took us from 13 colonies, too worthless to warrant the resources to control those colonies, to the most prosperous, powerful, free, and generous people in the world in less than 100 years. I hope that we collectively believe in our hearts, that the reason people immigrate here from every country in the world is freedom and opportunity and not a random coincidence. I hope that we as a country do not give in to the human nature that leads us to believe that our neighbors make poor choices at home, but perfect ones when electing officials, that these same neighbors make poor decisions at home, but perfect ones once in Washington DC.

I hope that we recognize that it is because of human nature, not despite it, that socialism and statism have always failed wherever they existed, and that free markets have succeeded everywhere they have existed. There is only so much motivation garnered from threats of fines and imprisonment, but the motivation of the hope for a better life is only limited by one’s imagination.

We were promised that Social Security taxes were the property of the person paying them, that they would be available with interest once one retired, and that they could be passed on to one’s heirs should one die before drawing the funds out. How does that resemble what we actually have?

We were promised that if we only gave people who needed it a Welfare hand up, we could assist most in moving back into the working main stream. Now, more people are on Welfare as a percentage of population, the programs were extended to less and less willing to accept a hand up over a hand out, and who find a gap between what the government will pay them to stay home and what working people are paid (after the taxes are paid).

We were promised that the 4 cent per gallon gas tax would only be used to fund highway construction and maintenance. It did just that, until Congress voted to use the funds to support public transportation like Amtrak, city busses, subways, etc. Now, transportation funds are scarce, Amtrak looses $39 per passenger (despite promises that it would be returned to the private sector, at a profit for taxpayers, once it is profitable), and gas taxes are many times the 4 cents per gallon that originally worked.

In Virginia, we were promised that if we allowed a state lottery, the money would be used for public education. Although the amount spent on education does come from the left over lottery money, the left over money equaled the previous budget. The original money was used for other desires. Now, the Virginia lottery participates in the Mega Millions ring that includes several states, the payouts have risen in dollar amounts, the chances of a Virginian winning have gone down, and the school systems are still peddling cans of Virginia Diner peanuts to help supply classrooms.

In June, a District of Columbia Metro crash killed 9 people. Accidents happen, and the causes must be identified and corrected, regardless of who is in charge. In an unrelated line of thinking, the NTSB and others exclaim this as an example of the need for more federal oversight of locally operated systems. They say that there needs to be more uniform rules among States and within localities. Why is this related to the “Trust me, I’m with the government” charade of the previous examples?

The District of Columbia is the exclusive purview of Congress. The DC Metro is completely within federal control. How can the NTSB then claim that the accident indicates the need for more federal oversight? They do so same way that they say that the deficit in highway spending is the result of anything other than Congressional raiding of the funds for other desires. They do so in when talking about the deficit in funds for Social Security after allowing people to get benefits without being citizens, much less contributors to the system. They talk about amendments to the current health care “bills” to forbid the use of Medicare money for other programs, even though the “trust fund” has long been dissolved and the money spent for other desires and Medicare funds do not cover Medicare expenses now, much less other desires.

In the words of Ronald Reagan, “Government is not the solution, Government is the problem.”

Are we more interested in doing the most good with the available resources? Or are we more interested in having equal good for all, even if it is, on average less good?

The “poor” are now a powerful electorate demographic, our children are less educated despite the spending, Amtrak is still bankrupt, people are still “denied” health care, and the list goes on. And the statist wrings his hands and points to these facts as proof that the original takeovers of these things didn’t go far enough.

I ask a simple question: Is there any cause for which our public servants solved the problem in their charge, where the program and its offices were then closed, and where the taxes collected for that purpose stopped?