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The Public Policy
The Difference Between Thine and Mine
Government keeps forgetting that the money it spends doesn’t belong to it.
The President’s budget reform panel is being encouraged to sniff for smoke in the midst of flames. At its latest public meeting it was told that tax breaks are “backdoor spending.” There is a two-fold problem in accepting such an equivalence. First, the nation’s fiscal predicament is not any so-called “backdoor spending,” but uncontrolled “front door” spending. Second, not only are the two not quantitatively comparable, they are not qualitatively so either.
The budget reform panel, officially named the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, is akin to a fire marshals’ convention in a burning building. How hard could it be to follow the flames to an inferno? In the case of the federal budget, the government is spending a quarter of all America produces — the highest peacetime level in U.S. history.
Still, at its latest meeting, outside witness Maya MacGuineas, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, identified so-called “tax expenditures” as “the most important area of the budget to reform.” She went on to state that it was her organization’s belief that all stipulations applied to spending should apply to such tax breaks too.
This is no less than ignoring the fire in search of the flammable.
First, it is important to understand what tax expenditures are: exemptions within the regular tax code. These allow individuals to pay less in taxes than they otherwise would — such as the mortgage interest deduction. They are tax breaks, in other words.
From an economic standpoint, tax expenditures have their detractors because they use the tax code to intervene in the market. The market itself should decide where investments and spending go, not tax breaks that encourage one course over another. In their opinion, the goal should be for neutrality between decisions.
From a tax policy perspective too, there are critics. They believe the goal should be the broadest, fairest, flattest, and simplest system possible. Exceptions mean taxes must be higher elsewhere, in order to raise the same amount of intended revenue.
With so many reasons to question them, it is easy to denigrate them. So why then seemingly defend them? Because it is all too easy to make a fundamental mistake in equating them with government spending. And that error opens the door to an even more serious one.
Admittedly, it is easy to mistake tax expenditures for spending from a fiscal standpoint. As a subtraction from the ledger’s revenue side, their effect is akin to an addition to the ledger’s spending side.
It is from the qualitative perspective where tax expenditures and spending are significantly dissimilar. Tax expenditures amount to allowing someone to keep more of the money they have earned. They keep a person’s money with its earner.
Federal spending is the use of someone else’s money by the federal government. It is giving someone else’s money to another person. Regardless of how well-intentioned, federal spending remains the distribution of the general taxpayer’s money to another individual.
The use of one’s own money and the use of someone else’s money are not the same thing.
If tax expenditures are to be examined as part of a broader budget reform proposal — and there are certainly reasons to do so — any revenue saved should be set aside for reducing the underlying tax rates. The last thing an elimination of tax expenditures should be used for is offsetting more federal expenditures.
This is why the distinction between tax expenditures and federal expenditures is so important. Blurring their sharp distinction only makes it easier to continue the current fiscal fiasco: the government’s use of others’ money as if it were the government’s.
Federal spending is our fiscal problem, but even this is symptomatic of a larger philosophical one: the inability to distinguish between “thine and mine.” Without that distinction, there is no theoretical brake on federal spending. The government can simply continue to arrogate more of the nation’s resources to itself and its own self-defined better intentions.
To fix the nation’s fiscal problems, we must control its spending. To control spending, we must recognize that the money is not government’s, but taxpayers’. And to do that we must acknowledge that taxpayers have a greater claim on their money than the government ever can.
If we are going to talk of reform, we must at least start from a common understanding, and an accurate one, of what real reform entails. This can not be done, if we fail to properly recognize what should be the first fundamental principle between a government and its citizens.
About the Author
J.T. Young served in the Department of Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004 and as a Congressional staff member from 1987 to 2000.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (69) | Leave a comment
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Shamus| 9.16.10 @ 6:45AM
Entitlement spending is the largest component of the federal budget. Cutting spending will need to involve cutting entitlements. How will this work from a political standpoint?
People receiving entitlements presumably are constituents of entitlement spending. When their representatives undertake to cut entitlement, will they simply accept this, or will they resist these cuts?
Appleby| 9.16.10 @ 6:57AM
I would google Greece Tantrum for the answer to that question.
As someone who is currently trying to hold her cat to a diet, I have a very clear idea of what it will be like to multiply this by 300 million. If the threat of Muslim violence bothers you, just wait until you start cutting Goodies!
The problem with socialism, said Margaret Thatcher, is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples money. And as we say in Kanukistan, WE ARE ENTITLED TO OUR ENTITLEMENTS!
Alan Brooks| 9.16.10 @ 9:14AM
the money belongs to Gran 'n' Gramps.
Nunya| 9.16.10 @ 12:56PM
I had a conversation a few years ago with my ex in-laws about this very thing. They are relatively wealthy, and I asked "How much less would you be willing to take from Social Security to ensure that the program is able to continue?" My answer? "I paid into the program. They owe me this."
Trying to explain that they were not receiving money that they put in, but that we who are working are paying them, fell upon deaf ears.
The truth is, the Ponzi scheme we call Social Security (and Medicare as well) are going to come crashing down around our ears, nobody in the cesspool we call Washington DC has the intestinal fortitude to stand up and say the truth--it's all about being re-elected so that one can become a lifetime politician.
Anna Keppa| 9.16.10 @ 6:10PM
Nunya, did your wealthy relatives have anything to do with Congress raiding and depleting the "lock box"? I think not. So when they say they put their money in (actually were forced to put their money in), and expect to get it back, they are on solid ground. If congress want to cut S/S, I will want them to cut the generous pensions they award themselves, following the same standards. Think they'll do that?
Diane | 9.16.10 @ 7:18PM
They've gotten out what they paid in already if they have been on it more than 3 years. The first payment was a man who put in 5 cents and received 17 cents payment. The first monthly payments was to a woman who put in $24.75 and received $22,888.92. The "lock box" is a myth that is thrown about. And whatever happened to personal responsibility in saving for old age?
Alan Brooks| 9.16.10 @ 9:24PM
No commenter above, or the one immediately below wants to mention why it is means testing is being considered by Obama's administration; the reason it is all third-rail politics as usual is: everyone thinks they deserve something, but others do not.
Diane | 9.17.10 @ 7:10PM
I'm totally against SS, and it needs to be phased out. But it pisses off the old people if you say that is what needs to be done, or intimate that they have already taken out "what they put in" and now they are merely more piglets on the govenment's teats. I've asked the question many times, with really no answer "What entitles you to someone else's money?" Usually they get pissed off and start spouting off.
RCV| 9.17.10 @ 7:19PM
What entitles you to take my money to fight wars you think are worthwhile? What entitles you to my money to maintain a fire department to put out a potential fire in your house? If you want to live in an anarchist society, or what you dream of as a libertarian utopia, please ... emigrate.
Diane | 9.17.10 @ 11:29PM
You're a know-nothing. If you actually knew *anything* you'd realize that almost everything the government spends our money on is unconstitutional. Maybe you'd better read the US Constitution, found here http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
Educate yourself before you start throwing up straw men, and sound the fool.
RCV | 9.18.10 @ 9:51PM
I'm a constitutional litigator by profession, which is why I found your argument so absurd.
Appleby| 9.17.10 @ 4:18PM
There are three things that destroyed Social Security and none of them had anything to do with what y'all are saying.
(1) The original concept of Social Security was that it would be paid only by working men, and that working men, upon reaching age 65 and retiring, would be its only beneficiaries. There were no benefits for non-working spouses, children (disabled or otherwise), divorced spouses, children of deceased veterans, or other freeloaders.
(2) The retirement age was set a good 15 years beyond the age when most working men would be dead.
(3) Finally, Social Security was supposed to be a SUPPLEMENT to one's own savings and provisions; it was NEVER meant to be one's sole support.
Adding freeloaders to the wagon, never raising the retirement age while longevity increased exponentially, and encouraging people to believe that they need not provide for themselves because SSI would provide for them -- all that was done by succeeding generations.
And they are the things that caused the gravy train to grind to a halt.
Put it back the way it was to begin with -- paid into only by working people, paid out only to working people who survived to age 85 and not to anyone who never paid in, and emphasize that this is a supplement, not a living wage, and it'd work just fine.
David| 9.16.10 @ 9:47PM
Joe and Bob make the exact same amount over their lifetime. Joe saves and has a nice nest egg. Bob saves nothing but has a plasma in every room of his over sized house. In means tested social security, who gets paid and why?
jb| 9.16.10 @ 6:54AM
Mr. Young,
The 500 lb gorilla sitting in the room being ignored by EVERYONE is welfare entitlements.
Every democrat in congress knows they've been slipping peanuts to the gorilla in ever increasing amounts ever since LBJ and the so-called; "Great Society" in a grand vote buying scheme. Fast forward to Obama and he has considerably stepped up the cost of gorilla feed. Now it is totally out of control and to stop feeding the beast will set off riots unseen since the French revolution.
Who wants to see dozens of cities burned to the ground reminiscent of South LA? Burning Washington DC, Detroit and parts of Chicago and Philadelphia would probably be an act of mercy OTOH.
TommyS| 9.16.10 @ 7:34AM
The politicians since LBJ (both parties) have been guilty of doing for people what they could and should do for themselves just to buy votes and feather their own nests.
The TEA party is right: we must change leadership.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 9.16.10 @ 8:46AM
TommyS and jb @ 6:54AM, while fully sympathetic with your comments, I must remind you that federal entitlement spending dates back, at least, to August 14, 1935, when left leaning Frankie Rosy-velt signed the Social Security Act into law. While certainly an unabashed buyer of votes using taxpayer money, el bee jay did not originate the concept. Arguably, the roots of this federal redistributionism date as far back as the very founding of the dumb-ocratic party by marty van boo-wren and the to-the-victors-belong-the-spoils practices of andy jaxon.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi.” - Martin Van Buren
Only 857 days to go
jb| 9.16.10 @ 9:28AM
I would only remind you that FDR was just another big government democrat, and not the first. He was only bailed out of the economic Great Depression doldrums by Dec 7th, 1941.
However, even before FDR was Woodrow Wilson, 1912 (my personal pick for the worst president until Obama), Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and America's first-ever federal progressive income tax in the Revenue Act of 1913. Wilson also hated black people and greatly expanded forced segregation of the races. The only thing he didn’t do was wear the white robes of the KKK, a true Democrat with a capitol D.
It is also noteworthy to me that every foreign war the USA has been dragged into was under a democrat until 9-11-2001; WWI was Wilson, WWII was FDR, Korea was Truman, Vietnam was JFK, the sacking of the U.S. Embassy in Iran (the real beginnings of the War on Terror) was Carter, and Bosnia was Clinton. The Arab terrorist finally picked on a Republican in September-01.
Dustoff| 9.16.10 @ 9:53AM
jb
Remember to, that Wilson would not stand for anyone protesting his going to war.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 9.16.10 @ 11:54AM
I guess I misunderstood. I thought your original comment was about entitlement spending, not about the progressive ideology of the president whose last name, according to Glenn Beck, is “I hate that man.” On that note, I thought I’d pointed out that a progressive dumb-ocratic party dates at least as far back as ol’ hickory. The last time I checked, his White House residency predates that of the Princeton purr-fessor. Their policies of slavery, forced confiscation of property and internment camps are not that different from the current policies practiced by those who believe it’s acceptable to lie to the American People if the objective is to get elected.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
"There are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness." berry obummer, August 2009
Only 857 days to go
Simplisisimus| 9.16.10 @ 7:38AM
Tax expenditures is like philogistan. It doesn't exist. The concept actually is;All money(and everything else) belongs to the government. The pooint of the Tax Code is to determine how much your allowed to keep!
Even before 1776 Americans rejected this idea.
Baloney Guy| 9.16.10 @ 7:43AM
The concept of fiscal reform is a ruling class concept. The reason for this is simple.
We have currently dropped 7 trillion on spending in the alleged war against poverty and the results have ensured a permanent state of poverty for 15% of the population.
In essence, looking for spending cuts will never lead to the correct solution. Hint: The correct solution is to admit that central economic planning has failed and will always fail.
The so called fiscal commission is just another slick move by the ruling class to separate you from your wealth while pretending they actually are interested in cutting spending.
There is no interest in cutting spending inside the beltway. There is no interest in results.
If there was an interest in results they wouldn't have a budget reform commission. They would have a government reform commission.
It's duty would be to review each agency from top to bottom. What does the agency produce? Has the agency ever created the environment to create one job?
Until that task is undertaken all spending/budget commissions are simply another farce in the continuing magic act called Washington, D.C.
Not enough money? Print more money. Not enough belief? Create a commission to create a belief.
Brian Mc| 9.16.10 @ 7:55AM
The mindset is so entrenched by the left, and for so long, that the only method to change it (for the good) is to penalize the activity, indirectly. If an individual receives an incentive in the form of an entitlement which allows said individual to set about waiting for more of the same they would be most likely quite content to atrophy while the rest of us struggle forward. They would be stupid to do otherwise.
If you receive an incentive to sit idle while the rest forge onward, to start, you have lost your right for a voice in the procedure, hence, you have lost your voter privelage. I will even venture that this should include anyone receiving a bureaucratic paycheck, whether local, or federal.
Life is cruel no matter how much socialism sirens on that we're only one more government program away from true happiness. Again, life is cruel, get over it, pick your ass up and get busy like the rest of us! No matter what you do, we will all answer for our gifts in the end; what we did, and did NOT do with those gifts determines our true reward and the future health of the country.
Melvin| 9.16.10 @ 8:21AM
Many of the ways that government utilizes to take our money from us is, impersonalization. We are not looked at as actual living, breathing human beings, but as revenue streams.
Government doesn't see or acknowledge who is behind these streams but in a rather cold and calculating way, they see the funds as budgets.
Government exists off numbers, not humanity. The human aspect disappears when we write the check to pay our taxes. After that we become just zero's and one's.
Look at it this way. You want to buy a new wide screen TV but don't have the money, You know your neighbor lives within his means, and you know he as money, but you really can't bring yourself to go over to your neighbor and ask him personally for the money, you don't want a loan, you just want the money. So what do you do. In another neighborhood a thug resides, so you go down to the thug, and make a deal with him. For the price of the wide screen TV and a percentage off the top for the thug, will he go over and take this money from your neighbor.
So the thug goes over to the neighbor slams him up against his house removes his wallet, takes the money, leaves, comes over to your house and gives you the money for your new wide screen TV.
It really all that simple, since you really don't have the guts to look your neighbor in the eye when you take his money, it is made much easier by having a third party do it. Because after-all your conscience is completely clear because you really didn't get the money from the neighbor, you got it from the thug which allows you to go blissfully to sleep with the warm glow of you new wide screen TV.
So the next morning you hear a commotion outside, and you see the thug slamming the neighbor up against his house and again removing money from the neighbors wallet, and you yell at the thug, "What are doing?" Thug replies," now that I know your neighbor has money I'll be coming to see him quite regularly."
Notice any similarities or parallels the way government and the thug take our money? The only difference is, the government wears a suit and tie and the thug wears a hoody, but both use force and intimidation to take our hard earned money.
GavInTucson| 9.17.10 @ 12:51AM
In short, the government view the people much the same way a thug views his victim -- as a cash register.
Old Soldier| 9.16.10 @ 8:43AM
President's budget reform panel has already been superseded and rendered obsolete. The Peoples Budget Reform Panel, otherwise known as the Tea Party, will handle it from here.
Bill| 9.16.10 @ 8:58AM
Anytime you hear a government official talk about tax cuts in terms of "we can't afford it," you know whose money he thinks it is, and you know who "we" is. Hint: "we" is not "We the People."
Petronius| 9.16.10 @ 9:13AM
At a recent gathering a long time friend who has always been unshakably liberal acknowledged the necessity of entitlement reform. I shot back, with an "absolutely not!" He shuddered when I followed up.
"We want entitlements abolished!" I will gainsay government benefits only for veterans and emergency service personnel wounded or injured in the line of duty.
Sheila| 9.16.10 @ 11:33AM
Yes, yes, yes!!! So many who claim they are independent of government assistance still expect "their" social security or student loans or farm subsidies or govt.-backed mortgages or . . . you fill in the blank. Taxation is merely government-sanctioned confiscation at the point of a gun. When congress votes itself pay raises and begrudges you the fruit of your own labor, there needs to be a paradigm shift. One minor quibble - limit those benefits to veterans injured in a combat MOS in the line of duty - I do not support a generous pension package for an army cook or clerk who has a truck accident. Otherwise, you are spot on.
Warrior | 9.16.10 @ 12:29PM
Sheila, way to lump in retired service veterans with welfare recipients, politicians and those receiving subsidies. You appear to one thought short of being Janet Napolitano.
Claypoole| 9.16.10 @ 1:27PM
Social Security is not welfare. That money was taken from us under threat of force for all the decades of our working lives. Its purpose? Why, the generous and benevolent government was going to keep our money for us so that we would not have to endure hardship in our old age. When I think about how much richer we would be today had we been able to keep and invest that money ourselves, I am sick. By all means, reform Social Security, with the end purpose of reform being the abolition of this fraud into which we all have been coerced. Younger workers should be cut free to spend/invest their own money as they see fit, but for those of us who are older--we want back what was stolen from us. (Yes, "stolen." What else would you call it when someone forces you to hand over your money?)
Jim O'Brien| 9.16.10 @ 3:14PM
Social Security should be dismantled. Start by closing it to all new workers. Give everyone the option to exit the system and receive a lump sum payment of all money "contributed" by the employee and employers, plus nominal interest (say 3%). If the person is retired, this would be adjusted for benefits already paid. Most people over 65 would probably stay in the system, but younger people would vote with their feet and take the lump sum. After about 20 years, the whole Ponzi scheme would be history.
Also, Congress should pass the Fair Tax, which would completely terminate the federal income tax and the IRS, replacing revenue with a simple national sales tax.
And, cut federal spending by about $2 trillion "yesterday". The federal government is sucking up so much capital that it is killing free enterprise, jobs, and our national security.
Warrior | 9.16.10 @ 12:39PM
Because police, fireman, military don't risk their lives on a regular basis and are begging for handouts without actually providing a service. Lump these public servants in with the handout crowd.
Margie| 9.16.10 @ 1:45PM
Dork.
Warrior | 9.16.10 @ 2:03PM
Nice response. Screw you and your bullshit attitude. If you want to argue on substance then go ahead and post. Of course you would rather name call like a 5 year old and bible thump like a mindless drone. Without those who were willing to spill their blood and lose their lives, you would not have had the protection of your liberties and properties that they have afforded.
Margie| 9.16.10 @ 2:09PM
Dork. Loser and liar.
Like the rest of your lying ilk you accuse of something I didn't say at all. I said nothing about Vets. Everyone knows where I stand, you anti-Israel losing liar.
You made a despicable and untrue comment meant as a cut toward police, fireman and the military. You think that is going to go without the accountability it deserves.
You're an idiot.
Warrior | 9.16.10 @ 2:50PM
Margie you pathetic mindless moron. Read again and then have someone explain to you what a dictionary is. Look up the word "sarcasm" and have them explain it to you. Now let's see who the liar is. Find one post, any one post, where I have said one derogatory comment or mention about Israel or for that matter anyone who even has a jewish sounding name. Margie pull on your ears real hard until you hear a pop. Once you extricate you head from your ass, come back and try to post something that actually has some merit.
Margie| 9.16.10 @ 3:04PM
I'm supposed to know that was sarcasm? I've read plenty of nasty posts by you and took it at its face. There are many Libertarians who talk that way about all of the public servants you just mentioned, and you know it.
So right back atcha, loser.
Warrior | 9.16.10 @ 3:27PM
You cornered the market on nasty posts. You probably can't help but treat people with some differing opinions as nasty as you do. Also while you attempt to find even a scrap of a potential anti-semitic post/comment I have made, also search to where you believe I'm a libertarian. Good luck you wretched wench.
Margie| 9.16.10 @ 7:43PM
Heh. I could cut & paste your despicable posts to me but anyone can do a search by your name, creep. You continue to live up to your character. And that of scumbag.
Warrior | 9.16.10 @ 8:58PM
Then do it and show the one post where I have spewed an anti-semitic remark. Can't do it. You like to toss the words like scumbag, liar and loser. I wonder if that's your version of the Christian thing to do?
Margie| 9.16.10 @ 10:04PM
1. Say, how come you did away with the link under your name here to your Libertarian website, Mr. honest?
Louis Jenkins| 9.16.10 @ 9:43AM
It's my money. And the brigands spend and spend. When is this absolute insaneness going to stop? Not until we gain more seats in the heart of government. Even then it may only slow. I'm tired of being seen as a free flowing spout of money for the government. We're feeling flushed by the excitment of O'Donnell, and others, but it will take a hard hand to slow the spending. It must be done, and done quickly, or the government will not stand. Then even that may be a good thing.
Ezra Wimple | 9.16.10 @ 9:44AM
I believe none other than Davey Crockett showed the way. In congress, after some localized natural disaster, he first argued for federal aid to the victims.
After a surprising talk with a constituent, later, Crockett realized the problem with this-- federal money ain't "federal". It's not his money to spend. He converted to "Tea Party" conservatism, a couple centuries ago, and gave a rousing speech saying as much.
http://www.juntosociety.com/patriotism/inytg.html
Read it.
Diane | 9.17.10 @ 11:36PM
Hey that page about Crockett is really interesting - and more should read it. Maybe our congresscritters need to read it so they'll get a clue.
Albert| 9.16.10 @ 9:44AM
It is a generosity to say that politicians blur the distiction between "our" money and "their" money. All the money belongs to those who earned it, not to the "collective" but don't tell that to Nancy Pelosi. Socialists like President Bozo, Pelosi, Reid, et.al. see money as hippies do in a commune. Whoever earns money tosses it in to the kitty, Whoever needs to spend money takes some out. All is shared. The problem arises when the same people are tossing in over and over while the others are taking out over and over, while contributing nothing. The takers have no incentive to contribute, so they don't. This is how Bozo and Co. see our money. Money is a commodity, a communal commodity, that is rightfully distributed by government and only by government. We the People on the other hand claim that money is private property. But then, the Socialists claim that private property does not really exist, thus authorizing government to control distribution of all of the "collectively owned" wealth. These are fundamentally incompatible views. The Socialists in government will never give up their view of collective ownership because such a collective requires authoritarian government to distribute and control wealth, and of course such authoritarian government is in the hands of Bozo, Peolisi, Reid, et.al. Socialists are essentially selfish, greedy thieves who enrich themselves at taxpayers' expense. Don't expect them to give up their power easily, no matter what the electoral outcomes.
Nunya| 9.16.10 @ 1:12PM
Albert, I think you're comments are spot on, with one caveat: I think the Socialists believe what they do, because "helping" those with less "feels good".
The ones I've met in the past are always talking about what's "fair" or what "feels good", and that is what drives them. They are roughly equivalent to 4-year-olds and they've never gotten over the fact that life's not fair. Their mentality is that those who've worked hard and succeeded have somehow done it on the backs of those they employ, or have somehow been lucky in their success. They are not thankful that they are gainfully employed with benefits, as it's far easier to think that someone has been unfairly given more, than to look in the mirror and see that they themselves do not have the skillset to be successful.
It's sad, really. Unfortunately, they've been able to gain control of our government over the past 100 years, and now they're forcing their BS on the rest of us.
Albert| 9.16.10 @ 2:00PM
I agree with you when it comes to your garden variety Socialist voter. But politicians are a different matter. It is one thing to believe the pablum spooned by Socialist politicians. It is another thing to dish it out. The average voter thinks he is doing right by voting to "help" others, while the politician sees power in controlling others, and wealth and prestige for himself in creating and expanding the poverty of others. This is a time honored tradition that dates back to Ancient Rome. With few exceptions, politicians are interested in themselves and only themselves.
Ghastlyone| 9.16.10 @ 11:15AM
You guys just wait. The time is approaching where the true hard working people of this country are going to say "fuck this" and just completely stop paying the government half their paychecks.
I would love to see what the government would do if 100 million people tomorrow, changed their W4 to "exempt" and told them to go suck a dick.
Albert| 9.16.10 @ 12:29PM
The greater problem arises not from patrician politicians who have no money to spend, but from their clients, the leeches who suck at the teat of the federal government. Stop the freebies to this crowd and just watch the riots! (Greece, anyone?)
Nunya| 9.16.10 @ 1:14PM
That's why I keep all my guns loaded. :-)
Albert| 9.16.10 @ 2:00PM
Ditto.
TR| 9.16.10 @ 6:16PM
Loaded and handy. And fully trained and capable of accurate use.
gearjammer| 9.16.10 @ 7:52PM
Just cancel your cable and cell phones and the rest of that bullsheet for three months. No movies, no papers,mags, any way you can starve the media money stream.
buckeyeman| 9.16.10 @ 12:21PM
You've simply GOT to go to the link posted by Ezra Wimple. Where is Horatio Bunce when we need him, or for that matter, David Crockett, who at least admitted the error of his ways.
Sadly, Crockett was eventually unelected, and left Washington with the immortal quote, "you may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas". Unless Texas secedes I'll stay and fight in Ohio (for now).
Ghastlyone: You are RIGHT ON!!!
Sean Robert Meaney| 9.16.10 @ 3:01PM
It all depends on how you prefer your Government.
Option A: Every Citizen owns one share in what is essentially a Commonwealth in which case it better be of benifit to every citizen equally - in which case you forgot to enshrine the right of every citizen to a seat on the Company Board of Directors.
Option B: The State owns every Citizen in which case money buys freedom and poverty buys tyranny. A version more in keeping with reality.
Option C: the Government is a charity borrowing from the Populace to pursue its own ends as minority representative as those views and ends may be.
If anything at all went wrong it was when the Founding Fathers decided to make amendments to the fundamental right of the Individual to represent themselves in Government for life and remove equality of power in favour of expediency of Authority.
bw3249| 9.16.10 @ 3:16PM
Is there anything more obscene that our government taking our tax dollars and giving them to foreign governments and/or individuals?
Joe D.| 9.16.10 @ 4:07PM
If stupid vtwin is reading, then I have some suggestions for cuts. NEA funds, departments of energy and education. We don't need them and they are a waist. Also, all of the obama's bloated staffs and czars. How about Nancy Pelosi's plane. The lists could go on and on.
larrym| 9.16.10 @ 4:56PM
I just read a quote fro Rush from his introduction to The Ruling Class. "We in the Country Class, believe in merit. We rise or fall based on merit."
What country is he living in? What a crock.
Just up the road from my house is the site of the former Western Electric. For four consecutive years it was named the most productive factory in the company. Then it went belly-up. Primarily because of bad management at the very top.
Our auto industry almost failed entirely. Not because of wages, but because they couldn't make decent cars. Our clothing manufacturers fled the north because of high wages. They were welcome in the south until the companies found that there was cheaper labor overseas.
Our steel industry let themselves fall far behind in capital improvements until they could no longer compete.
Corporations don't care about the American consumers. They care about consumers in general. They don't care if our middle class decreases in numbers as long as the middle class does well in China, Russia, India et al.
Merit, doing your job well, has very little to do with financial advancement. A good amount of our unemployed were excellent employees. And they were brought down by people of merit. Unscrupulous people in the banking sector whose motivation was greed, who advanced through the system based on merit.
The idea that good people "fall or rise based on merit" has become a cruel hoax. It's a smug ideal used to make the haves look down upon the have-not's because those in the unemployment line must not have done a meritorious job.
Wake up people. It's not the dems or the republicans or the conservatives or the liberals or the Mexicans or the minorities or the Muslims who are out to get you. Those are red herrings bought and sponsored by Corporate America.
They rule the country. They own our politicians and they own our media-including this publication.
Pick your favorite politician and your least favorite. Scratch the surface and you will see where the money comes from. They have a seat at the table no matter who is in power. Obama called them in and made his deals on health care,Bush called them in when he was working on his energy deal. Clinton was their buddy throughout his two terms.
We don't run this country any more. They keep us occupied by throwing us chew bones. Here puppy, it's a Muslim, an illegal immigrant, global warming, gay marriage. They got a thousand chew toys that they toss out to keep us away from playing in their sand box.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 9.16.10 @ 6:32PM
You wrote, ““Just up the road from my house is the site of the former Western Electric. For four consecutive years it was named the most productive factory in the company. Then it went belly-up. Primarily because of bad management at the very top.” This supports the El Rushbo point you quoted, “We rise or fall based on merit.” The Western Electric you described lacked merit and so failed. That is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work. Unfortunately, the capitalism envisioned by georgie-porgie sore-ass and his cheaper-by-the-gross slaves in OUR gum’mint steals OUR treasure in order to bail out companies that deserve to fail. gum’mint meddling in the free market system is the root cause of ALL our financial problems, not corporations seeking to earn an honest dollar for producing a useful product. Need I mention that jobs are created by profitable businesses, unless you consider stealing OUR money a profitable business.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” - Adam Smith
Only 857 days to go
larrym| 9.16.10 @ 7:45PM
My point is that the workers did not and do not "rise or fall based on merit" as Rush would have us believe..
Corporations exist to make money, not to create jobs nor produce anything of value, nor to care about the environment or the workers. They should do nothing other than generate profit. That's their role in the financial world. The "gum'mint" which n this country is the people represented by their elected officials have a broader role. They should care about the workers, the safety of the products and other interests of the society.
We set the guidelines that we want corporations to live by. We don't let the corporations do this. We tried this and found that the "gov'mint" -the people-wound up paying for the polluted waste they left behind when they failed. We found that the food and drugs they produced killed many of us.
Only a total idiot would let a corporation exist without regulation. That's corporate anarchy.
Should we bail them out when they fail? Only when it's in the people's interest. What are you suggesting we do when they leave toxic waste behind, or raid their retirement pensions or poison the public? Are you going to sue a bankrupt company?
Grow up. Neither the "gov'mint" nor the corporations are our enemies nor our heroes. Each has a role to play, although Rushbo may disagree with that.
larrym| 9.16.10 @ 7:45PM
My point is that the workers did not and do not "rise or fall based on merit" as Rush would have us believe..
Corporations exist to make money, not to create jobs nor produce anything of value, nor to care about the environment or the workers. They should do nothing other than generate profit. That's their role in the financial world. The "gum'mint" which n this country is the people represented by their elected officials have a broader role. They should care about the workers, the safety of the products and other interests of the society.
We set the guidelines that we want corporations to live by. We don't let the corporations do this. We tried this and found that the "gov'mint" -the people-wound up paying for the polluted waste they left behind when they failed. We found that the food and drugs they produced killed many of us.
Only a total idiot would let a corporation exist without regulation. That's corporate anarchy.
Should we bail them out when they fail? Only when it's in the people's interest. What are you suggesting we do when they leave toxic waste behind, or raid their retirement pensions or poison the public? Are you going to sue a bankrupt company?
Grow up. Neither the "gov'mint" nor the corporations are our enemies nor our heroes. Each has a role to play, although Rushbo may disagree with that.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$| 9.16.10 @ 11:46PM
No, your point is that you are a kommie-nist, a failed system that has never worked even at the point of a gun. Corporations are businesses. All businesses exist to earn a profit for their owners, period, only hiring when it needs to employ more people in order to maximize its profits. If hiring anyone is not profitable, it does not do so, and it has no such obligation. The business of business has never been to provide jobs. And every business believing that it can increase its profits profitably by expanding its workforce, does so based on whether or not the individuals under consideration for employment have the potential to enhance the business’s bottom line, period. Merit in this case is synonymous with the employee’s value to the business. Nothing more; nothing less. Only a true believer in failed marxism, would not understand the truth of Mr. Limbaugh’s statement.
Gill O’Teen ✝✡$
Don’t Tread on Me.
gill.Oteen07041776@gmail.com
“Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.” - Quintilian (35 – 100) a Roman rhetorician from Hispania
Only 857 days to go
Thom| 9.16.10 @ 6:39PM
A paraphrase form “Bateman Begins”, “why do we “fall”, to learn how to pick ourselves up” . Government prevents half the population from “falling” and the other half pays for the privilege of owning “slaves” they get no productive use from.
Tens of millions of able bodied adults in this country are insulated from the realities of life and the lessons that only “falling” and learning how to pick one ’s self up as often as required can provide. Until every able bodied citizen of this country is required to be “responsible” for themselves and their own first and foremost under penalty of law nothing is going to change at which point we will eventually collapse as a Nation and society. I can count on two hands all the 20, 30 and even 40 something “teenagers” still living at home after the better part of a decade at “university” that are either unemployed or part time and can’t earn in a year what I pay in total taxes a year to the Federal government. It isn’t just about government spending but what government spending does to personal responsibility. Everything that is government subsidized or outright “free” produces a slave to some extent.
Tony in Central PA| 9.16.10 @ 10:08PM
Yeah, let's erase the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Let's also make it retroactive.
Bennet Cecil| 9.19.10 @ 6:14PM
Presidents Bush and Obama have hugely overspent relative to tax receipts. You can raise taxes on the wealthy or everyone if you like, but this will exacerbate unemployment. High unemployment causes politicians to lose their jobs as many will learn in November. Most Americans do not realize that inflation is coming, the ultimate flat tax. Government spending cuts are coming because the economy is not able to sustain overspending forever. Collapse of the dollar would be even worse than 1970s style inflation. Hopefully, new politicians will choose to limit spending and let the economy grow.