Guns & Butter
In the ongoing debate regarding the Iraq war, there is constant harping over whether we should be funding the war or funding x number of social projects. Usually “the poor” or “victims” of something or other, the latest Hurricane, the evils of health care, whatever are cited as the rightful recipients of government largesse, not some war in the Middle East. Regardless of your stance on the war, you should at least agree on this element.
Constitutionally, the power of the government is limited, and one of the delegated powers of government is to make war on our behalf. Congress declares it and the Executive leads. Wars have always been and will always be very costly. That’s why we try to avoid them. With this in mind, let’s look at the myriad of social programs.
Agreeing with James Madison, I can find nowhere in the Constitution where any single one of them is a federal mandate and thus a worthy recipient of my or anyone else’s tax dollars. I think many of the noble causes are worth a mix of charitable time and money, voluntarily given by a number of us to help our fellow man. I pray that many of them can find that funding and that those who need help can receive it. I do not, however, feel that we should be held at the point of a gun to fund an incompetent bureaucracy to rob from us, take a carrying charge, then redistribute the money in some scheme or other that is filled with corruption of all sorts and mismanagement.
As the "Reverend" Lowery so eloquently put it as he was slamming the bully pulpit at Coretta Scott King's funeral, “For war, billions more, but no more for the poor.” This statement, of almost any, should clearly indicate the basic feeling of the Left and all its disciples on the responsibility of government. Their root belief, from the nightly news broadcasts bemoaning not enough money in Medicare to the cries of stealing school lunches and ketchup packets from the mouths of poor minority public school students, the Left has not only adopted the care and well-being of Nanny State as their sole reason for existence, they have come to accept that it is what any "reasonable" and "sensible" American would want as well.
They see Libertarians and conservatives as the aberration. We make no sense, because we want to cripple the noble programs they have put into place to protect us all. We could only be doing it out of spite, out of hatred for the children...
Never once do I see it mentioned that the sheer cost may be too overpowering. Never have I heard a single leftist speak to how these programs are failing partially due to a wasteful and sometimes corrupt government bureaucracy and partially because they are endless cash machines that devour every last dollar in their path. Admit that on the nightly news? See that in the editorial pages of the New York Times or Washington Post? I don't think so.
Because of this basic failure on the Left's part to understand this simple fact, that there is no bottomless well of money for them to siphon off and use on their pet projects, that it is in fact all our money being forcibly taken from us and wrongly so at that, they hold no credit with me in the halls of debate or in their arguments that war should be set aside for domestic projects, butter instead of guns.
The Constitution wasn't written that way, and rightly so. It never asked of us to do that and we should never assume that we must. To do so will only bankrupt us all and eventually put paid to the dream that is America. I know which side I'm on. How about you?
In the ongoing debate regarding the Iraq war, there is constant harping over whether we should be funding the war or funding x number of social projects. Usually “the poor” or “victims” of something or other, the latest Hurricane, the evils of health care, whatever are cited as the rightful recipients of government largesse, not some war in the Middle East. Regardless of your stance on the war, you should at least agree on this element.
Constitutionally, the power of the government is limited, and one of the delegated powers of government is to make war on our behalf. Congress declares it and the Executive leads. Wars have always been and will always be very costly. That’s why we try to avoid them. With this in mind, let’s look at the myriad of social programs.
Agreeing with James Madison, I can find nowhere in the Constitution where any single one of them is a federal mandate and thus a worthy recipient of my or anyone else’s tax dollars. I think many of the noble causes are worth a mix of charitable time and money, voluntarily given by a number of us to help our fellow man. I pray that many of them can find that funding and that those who need help can receive it. I do not, however, feel that we should be held at the point of a gun to fund an incompetent bureaucracy to rob from us, take a carrying charge, then redistribute the money in some scheme or other that is filled with corruption of all sorts and mismanagement.
As the "Reverend" Lowery so eloquently put it as he was slamming the bully pulpit at Coretta Scott King's funeral, “For war, billions more, but no more for the poor.” This statement, of almost any, should clearly indicate the basic feeling of the Left and all its disciples on the responsibility of government. Their root belief, from the nightly news broadcasts bemoaning not enough money in Medicare to the cries of stealing school lunches and ketchup packets from the mouths of poor minority public school students, the Left has not only adopted the care and well-being of Nanny State as their sole reason for existence, they have come to accept that it is what any "reasonable" and "sensible" American would want as well.
They see Libertarians and conservatives as the aberration. We make no sense, because we want to cripple the noble programs they have put into place to protect us all. We could only be doing it out of spite, out of hatred for the children...
Never once do I see it mentioned that the sheer cost may be too overpowering. Never have I heard a single leftist speak to how these programs are failing partially due to a wasteful and sometimes corrupt government bureaucracy and partially because they are endless cash machines that devour every last dollar in their path. Admit that on the nightly news? See that in the editorial pages of the New York Times or Washington Post? I don't think so.
Because of this basic failure on the Left's part to understand this simple fact, that there is no bottomless well of money for them to siphon off and use on their pet projects, that it is in fact all our money being forcibly taken from us and wrongly so at that, they hold no credit with me in the halls of debate or in their arguments that war should be set aside for domestic projects, butter instead of guns.
The Constitution wasn't written that way, and rightly so. It never asked of us to do that and we should never assume that we must. To do so will only bankrupt us all and eventually put paid to the dream that is America. I know which side I'm on. How about you?
posted by Rob Beck | 6:30 AM
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