As we reach the end of this hard fought election and we filter through the media spin and the candidate's surrogate's spin, the election come down to two points. 1) Do you want more government or less government and 2) Do you trust the President or Mitt Romney?
I will attempt to put this in some perspective. Government by and for the people ie representative government has not been representative for a long time except for what we can get from government. Many politicians measure their performance by how much largesse they can bring home from Washington. Robert C Byrd, my Senator, was the master at this and many present Senators are trying to emulate his example. Government as the founding fathers described was for three things. 1)Establish Justice (Rule of Law) 2) Promote the General Welfare (Protection of our unalienabhle rights) and 3) provide for the Common Defense. Our government has grown out of control as people expected more and more from the government. Instead of insuring we can "pursue liberty", the government has intervened in our daily lives in so many ways that we don't even know or understand them anymore. Do we need a Department of Education? In years past local communities provided the funds for local schools, hired teachers, set the direction through a school board and educated our kids. How did we go from that to a Department of Education that has a $43 Billion budget. During the Carter Administration OPEC embargoed oil and drove prices up which caused President Carter to found the Department of Energy for the purpose of getting us off the dependency on the Middle East for oil. Now thirty years later we still import lots of oil from the Middle East and the Department of Energy has a budget of $27 Billion. The EPA Budget is $8.5 Billion, Deaprtment of Interior is $11.5 Billion, Department of Commerce is $14.2 Billion and on and on. We have more government than we can afford and we keep adding more and it costs us more in taxes, more in debt and more devalued money. If Romney does only one thing and repeals the Affordable Care Act, we will have smaller government. Once Romney is in place there will be many opportunities to rationally decide what we can afford and what we can't and do the job of reducing the size and scope of government.
As for the trust element, Obama said he would be a post racial president but his surrogates have used the race card more than anyone else. He has demogogued the rich as "not paying their fair share" even though the top 10% of taxpayers pay 70% of the total tax. He has pushed for redistribution of wealth. In 2008, Barack Obama ran as a moderate, bipartisan reformer who was going to change the tone in Washington. He has governed as a hyper-partisan, arrogant, divisive, polar opposite of the man he pretended to be in 2008. The Democrats and President Obama have increased federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) to 25.3%.
I will attempt to put this in some perspective. Government by and for the people ie representative government has not been representative for a long time except for what we can get from government. Many politicians measure their performance by how much largesse they can bring home from Washington. Robert C Byrd, my Senator, was the master at this and many present Senators are trying to emulate his example. Government as the founding fathers described was for three things. 1)Establish Justice (Rule of Law) 2) Promote the General Welfare (Protection of our unalienabhle rights) and 3) provide for the Common Defense. Our government has grown out of control as people expected more and more from the government. Instead of insuring we can "pursue liberty", the government has intervened in our daily lives in so many ways that we don't even know or understand them anymore. Do we need a Department of Education? In years past local communities provided the funds for local schools, hired teachers, set the direction through a school board and educated our kids. How did we go from that to a Department of Education that has a $43 Billion budget. During the Carter Administration OPEC embargoed oil and drove prices up which caused President Carter to found the Department of Energy for the purpose of getting us off the dependency on the Middle East for oil. Now thirty years later we still import lots of oil from the Middle East and the Department of Energy has a budget of $27 Billion. The EPA Budget is $8.5 Billion, Deaprtment of Interior is $11.5 Billion, Department of Commerce is $14.2 Billion and on and on. We have more government than we can afford and we keep adding more and it costs us more in taxes, more in debt and more devalued money. If Romney does only one thing and repeals the Affordable Care Act, we will have smaller government. Once Romney is in place there will be many opportunities to rationally decide what we can afford and what we can't and do the job of reducing the size and scope of government.
As for the trust element, Obama said he would be a post racial president but his surrogates have used the race card more than anyone else. He has demogogued the rich as "not paying their fair share" even though the top 10% of taxpayers pay 70% of the total tax. He has pushed for redistribution of wealth. In 2008, Barack Obama ran as a moderate, bipartisan reformer who was going to change the tone in Washington. He has governed as a hyper-partisan, arrogant, divisive, polar opposite of the man he pretended to be in 2008. The Democrats and President Obama have increased federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) to 25.3%.
Thoughtful Americans know the difference between the
voluntary agreement to taxation to pay for legitimate government services, and
confiscation of wealth for redistribution by the power brokers to fund a
welfare state and a block of dependable voters.
Thoughtful Americans know this election is a choice between
the American Dream and the Welfare State, or more succinctly between liberty
and tyranny.
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