I'm Sorry, Was That YOUR Tax Money?

My good friend Mike Kole brought up on his Saturday 8/27 discussion the fact that the GOP has virtually abandoned any pretense of fiscal responsibility. The worst of it is, he couldn't be more correct. The party of the "Contract With America" and Ronald Reagan is now feasting at the same trough full of your tax dollars that the Democrats so lustfully devoured all the years they controlled Congress.

Let us consider this. There is nothing that will stop those in power from spending that cash. It comes in automatically, confiscated from us practically at the point of a gun. There is no stopping them. Vote them out and a worse parasite takes their place. Granted, it's not everyone in Congress doing this. Ron Paul from Texas is a notable and laudable exception to the runaway spending and looting of the national treasury exhibited by most people on Capitol Hill.

So how do you stop them? Vote Libertarian? If only it were that easy (although that's a good start ;)) . You have to cut off their money. In addition to voting for people like Ron Paul (and Mike Kole), you have to make it abundantly clear to those in power that their jobs depend upon cutting to the bone that which we now assume is the norm. Stop feeding the beast and it will whither. But...but all those programs, all those needy people, you stammer. What will they do to survive if we take away their money? That's just what Congress hopes you'll ask, and they hope the answers of people like me and Mike Kole won't be good enough to convince you otherwise. They hope your eyes will glaze over when we talk about limited government and fiscal responsibility. So I won't lecture you. I'll let the man whose grave Congress dances on do that.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

and the killer to all New Deal and post New Deal programs...drum roll...

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

- all 3 courtesy of James Madison

If the man often called "The Father of the Constitution" doesn't think government should be trusted with your money to run a million little programs, why should you think so? When you hear talk of the bogeyman fear of returning to a "pre-New Deal" version of the Constitution, this is what those leftists are referring to. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and whether it's a Republican or a Democrat in power, make no mistake that their most fervent belief is that they know how to spend your money better than you do.

You wouldn't take this from someone walking into your home from off the street, why do you take it from government? Conditioning perhaps, or perhaps because history is such a forgotten art you may not recall what it was like before government started expanding like the 15-minuter, Morgan Spurlock, in "Supersize Me". Take some time to do a little research. Take some time to throw facts and figures in the face of your Congressmen and women until they melt in the sunlight like the nasty little tax vampires they are. Remind them that government didn't always do the jobs it does and America muddled along just fine. John Stossel gives a fair accounting of it in his latest column.

We can live without much of what our abusive parents in government provide. You just have to ask yourself this question. If you believe any of what I've said, and think government is too big for its britches, just ask "Can I live without my favorite government nanny program?" If you can, you're on the way to recovery. The first step's admitting you have a problem (Hi, I'm Greg and I like the Dept of Education). Get past that, and we can finally start imprinting on these pork barrelers that their time is over.