Is the government the new “company store?”

How well does the government manage our money?  Do our elected leaders spend it responsibly and frugally, as they should?  Sen. Charles Schumer answered these questions saying, “Let me say this to all the chattering class that so much focuses on those little, tiny, yes, porky amendments:  ‘the American people really don’t care.'”  He was speaking about the wasted spending, the pork, in the $787 billion stimulus package.  How much of the $787 billion actually stimulates the economy?  According to the Wall Street Journal, only 12 percent “is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.”

Equally disturbing, over $200 billion will not stimulate the economy; instead, it advances dependence on the government, advances socialism.  This money is earmarked for income-transfer payments–Medicaid, expanded unemployment benefits, food stamps and the earned income credit for people who do not pay income tax.

Maybe we should relax.  After all, this spending is only a one-time boost to the economy, not a permanent expansion of the federal government.  Or is it?  President Reagan explained the reality of these welfare-state expenditures saying, “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.”

With massive spending and debt, the government is taking more control of our lives, methodically leading us further into socialism, all in the name of helping us.  In 1816 Thomas Jefferson forewarned of this government propensity saying, “I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared.  To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.  If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements.  If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

We were warned.  What will it take to get our attention?  Can we learn before it’s too late?  Benjamin Franklin said, “Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.”  Have we lost our self-reliance and prefer to be indentured servants to the federal government, to the “company store,” rather than face the inconveniences and hardships of freedom, independence and self-sufficiency?

The government is borrowing money we cannot afford to pay back.  The government is borrowing money our children and grandchildren cannot afford to pay back. President James Madison opined on incompetent congressional spending saying, “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare … the powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.”

The government is quietly carrying out a coup of the United States Constitution, transforming it from the limited powers defined by our Founding Fathers to the unlimited powers of self-indulgence.

A 1700s French aristocrat and philosopher Destutt de Tracy unknowingly defined our Founding Fathers’ values when he said, “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry…has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who…have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate…the guarantee to everyone of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.”

Can we return to these independent, freedom-loving values?  Can we reclaim the pride of responsibility, the dignity of self-respect, and the satisfaction of self-sufficiency?  Can we say to our leaders, “Enough?”

We can get back control of our government.  We can take back our constitutional power.  We can force our elected officials to be responsible and to work for us.  All we need is the conviction and courage to start a second American Revolution; this time without guns, this time a peaceful revolution in the voting booth; the voting booth our Founding Fathers gifted us.

Our choice — indentured servants to the government “company store,” or freedom.

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