There are many ways to summarize the vision of the Founding Fathers, as well as the basics of what’s written into the Republican Party’s Platform every four years. Townhall.com’s John Hawkins has made the use of lists in his columns a signature and effective feature. One recent installment elegantly and succinctly outlined basic principles that should be shouted from the housetops by everyone on the political right. Here is Hawkins:
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” — Ronald Reagan
Relying on big government to help you out would be like relying on the Girl Scouts to spearhead an invasion of Iran. It’s the wrong people, in the wrong place, doing the wrong job. Whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge, our government is barely functional. That’s certainly not a shocker. Anyone who has had dealings with the federal government can tell you that it’s slow, stupid, expensive, belligerent and incompetent. But, here’s the $64,000 question: WHY is the federal government so slow, stupid, expensive, belligerent and incompetent? It’s not a mystery.
1) It’s not the government’s money: One of the biggest reasons a “kid in a candy store” acts like a “kid in a candy store” is because he didn’t have to earn the money he’s about to spend. It’s no different for the government. Government employees are not the ones working double shifts when they’re exhausted to collect enough money to pay their taxes. They just collect the sweat of someone else’s brow and spend it the way they see fit. If you’re irresponsible with your money, you may lose your house. If a company is irresponsible with its money, it may go out of business. Yet if a government employee is irresponsible with YOUR MONEY, he’s not on the hook for it personally. If he borrows billions and it gets frittered away, it doesn’t come out of his wallet. To them, it’s all monopoly money and no matter what happens, they’re going to get more to play with next year.
2) The government is doing things it shouldn’t be doing: How do you think Burger King would do at selling perfume? How would you feel about eating Purina brand hamburger? How about discount shoes sold by Rolex? If the government were simply building roads, throwing up a few street signs, securing the borders and making sure rotten horse meat isn’t being sold as steak in the local supermarket, it would probably be relatively good at its jobs. But, when we have the government declaring your yard a wetland because it rains, micro managing what kind of light bulbs you’re allowed to buy, bailing out big corporations and forcibly taking over our health care, of course the government does it badly. Just as you couldn’t be a talented brain surgeon, race car driver AND Navy SEAL all at the same time, the federal government simply cannot be all things to all people.
To continue reading about #’s 3) It can’t go out of business; 4) It doesn’t effectively measure success and failure; and 5) There’s a lack of responsibility…visit townhall.com.
