Why aren't we talking about cutting government?
Government CAN get smaller. That CAN happen. It SHOULD happen.
Margaret Thatcher famously and rightly said, that “there is no government money, there is only taxpayer money that the government spends.” This might not be the exact quote, but it’s close. And boy was she right. Yet so many people don’t understand this.
Before we go any further we have to say that we appreciate our entire readership and we know that many of you are against crony capitalism but are not fully on board with shrinking the state is a serious way, yet. (Wink.) Part of our philosophy at ACC is to embrace people who come from different political positions but who have their heart in the right place.
That said.
In addition to the many people who are just plain ignorant on the subject of government and where the money for government comes from, who don’t understand why they are being taxed nor care to, there are at least as many people who are willfully ignorant. They do not want to really acknowledge the truth of the situation. They know that it’s weird (some would say immoral) that when one makes money one is supposed to fork over much of it to a state that often works against one’s interests. They know something doesn’t smell right but these people often shrug and assert that we need “roads”. This is the way government has been funded forever and thus shall it be forever so.
This is frustrating enough.
Then there are other people who cling to the income tax because they see it as a way to extract money by force from people they envy. This is also a significant part of the population. These are the same people who call for programs to subsidize all manner of unsustainable economics in the name of “equity”. (Equity is equality of outcomes, by use of force of one kind or another, not equality of opportunity, or equal treatment under the law.) They believe it is just to take from people who have earned a living and to give much of it, first to the massive government apparatus, then to the private crony capitalist class (though this is never acknowledged), and then lastly (a relatively small amount) to a dependent “underclass”.
This is key. Many of the particularly savvy pro-tax people often manipulate the envious (at least in our observation) to keep the crony spigots open. “Social justice” to fund crony capitalism. It happens all the time.
We believe that a basic welfare system is needed. People fall on hard times. Children are diagnosed with horrible illnesses and need help, lots of help, often expensive help. No society should turn its back on the “weak”, the meek, the infirmed, the people who truly need help. How this is done is a very open question however. We need a welfare SYSTEM, but we do not need an all encompassing, very 20th century, welfare STATE.
This seems obvious to us but it is a radical statement as seen by some. Why is this?
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