STOP RAISING TAXES - SO WE CAN START RAISING RAISES.
Or: STOP EXPANDING AMERICAN GOVERNMENT SO PEOPLE CAN AGAIN AIM FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM!
Does this make sense? Yes, of course it does, except to those who are convinced that government is the solution to all or most problems. Ronald Reagan famously said: in "today's crisis," government is not the solution to the problem, it is the problem. His actual quote has been streamlined to "Government is not the solution, it is the problem."
That quote has been turned, stunningly, on its head by spiteful, poorly educated (on politics and civic history) left-wingers. They even go so far as to suggest that somehow conservatives think the best government would be nearly no government. Or, so little government that the greedy, violent, criminal, depraved, and any ne'er do wells could ultimately be the insane running the asylum.
Outside of a sense that the crazies are already running society, the turning of those words of Reagan, and the broad sentiment he conveyed, into something flatly "anti-government" is unproductive to the point of being cruel.
Saying that a small government sentiment is "anti-government" is akin to saying that those who believe in watching what they eat actually would prefer not eating, and that both will allow you to safely get into better shape. It's not just playing with words, it's wacky. Animaniacs kind of wacky.
Vermont has a senator with this bizarre, seemingly all-or-nothing political rhetoric, by the name of Bernie Sanders. And MSNBC has at least one vocal comrade of Sanders, in Ed Schultz. Both are an embarrassment to anyone seeking a rational discussion on the size of government versus the scale of people's opportunities and liberties.
Excellence and progress comes from the private sector, from R&D and science, and from not bureaucrats, pork projects, and wildly imbalanced pension plans for gov't employees. Don't be fooled by pie-in-the-sky promises. The only reason gov't spending and size gets continually larger is because the ones with the purse strings forgot they work for people, not the other way around. Time to change that.
Government is not the enemy of the people, but only until it proves to be the enemy. It is hurting us, but only some are truly outraged by it, most notably in recent years, the tea party movement.
It's hard to live on what was not long ago a good income level, and there's no sign of improvement coming. Better to stop the march toward government dominance now than to weep for the extinction of the American Dream later. One by one it is happening, for a variety of reasons, high among them the high cost of living versus honest, usual incomes. Remember when most middle class families could survive on one full-time income? No? It used to be so.
Now, and always, vote for the goal of smaller government and, thus, greater opportunity. The issues beyond the question of expanding government are indeed important, but they won't be your concern as a citizen if you're struggling to SUPPORT the government rather than CARING FOR yourself, your family, you business, and your community. It is getting harder every year for most people, and not only because of the recession. It's the trend going back decades, sadly.
It is time to stop raising taxes and to start allowing raises -- for those NOT working for Congress or on Wall Street -- to happen. It is through better family earnings that we get improved tax bases, not through larger and larger government. Doesn't that make honest sense to these so-called leaders?!
Don't wait for their answers, give them yours on November 2.
- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)
