Freedom
September 15, 2010
Freedom
By Robert J. Barbera
The highest hope to which most people aspire is to be free. However, are we taking the steps necessary to be free? Over the years, Americans have become less self-reliant and hence less free. This has been caused by many things.
We the People have become more and more accustomed to government entitlements. If you don’t earn enough the government provides a tax refund. As the ultimate oxymoron, you can get a “tax refund” even if you haven’t paid taxes. The list of entitlements continues with food stamps, rent through section 8, free legal and medical services etc. etc. The programs, which started with seemingly worthy ideas, are now rife with abuse.
Americans have always expected our military wars to end in decisive victory. The “War on Poverty” has lasted 45 years at a cost of tens of trillions of dollars. Statistics show us further from “victory” in that war today than when we started in 1965, yet to complain is to be considered mean-spirited.
Restrictions and regulations have mounted over the years, Environmental controls on land use and building development preempt owner’s decisions and development plans. Health and safety regulations stymie production.
The complicated mix of sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, state taxes, employment taxes, fines and fees are confusing and confiscatory a mix that routinely takes over 50% of the middle class incomes. The current tax system penalizes success and rewards failure.
We have a nation of litigants. Honest citizens and business face legal harassment and enormous fees simply for trying to perform their services in good faith.
Special business interest groups from farming to manufacturing receive subsides. Our businesses now expect to be bailed out of their own mismanagement by taxpayers.
In the past Americans were expected to be independent, responsible, and self-reliant. Now problems are solved at someone else’s expense with big government as the enabler. The traditional American “helping hand” in times of trouble has become an endless taxpayer handout – now viewed as a right.
Our lawmakers take resources and productivity from one group and give entitlements to another group. For their interventions they expect to be reelected. And politicians love feeling benevolent. The great example of this was encouraging home ownership among folks who clearly could not afford it. The whole housing system went “Helter Skelter” to provide loans. As a result, our economy broke down.
Our representatives are supposed to be the servants of the people. The people are now the servants of the representatives. The price we have paid is lost of freedom. Let us recapture our freedoms of the past. The surest way is by once again to become independent and self-reliant.