Op-ed column: The richest country in history By David Schlosser, candidate for U.S. Congress
Week of 30th August 2006 http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/media-press/op-ed/060830_The_richest_cou ntry.php For todays political rulers, the greatest thing about being in Congress is the opportunity to spend other peoples money. And the greatest thing about running for Congress is the opportunity to tell everyone how theyre going to spend other peoples money. Speaking to teachers? More Federal money for smaller classes. Speaking to principals? More Federal money for transporting special education students. Speaking to nurses? More funding for medical care. Speaking to doctors? Higher Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. This is a great game, because candidates never have to worry about contradicting themselves. As long as a candidate is promising more money for everyone, no one can claim he or his company, union, church, or neighborhood is being left behind. Speaking to farmers? More subsidies for alternative fuels. Speaking to veterans? More and better health and pension benefits. Speaking to seniors? Higher cost-of-living adjustments. Speaking to park rangers? More money for natural resource conservation. Speaking to paper manufacturers? More money for logging roads. Even when a candidate commits to spend millions or billions of dollars for new programs, theres always more where that came from. After all, the United States of America is the richest nation in the world. Its the richest nation in the history of the world. A nation as rich as ours should be able to find the resources necessary to provide universal education, universal health care, universal defense, universal this, and universal that. This is a beautiful fallacy. It serves candidates perfectly, because it answers every question and no one can argue against it. We enjoy such extraordinary wealth that our standard of living is literally inconceivable to billions of our global neighbors. No matter what your priority happens to be missile defense, wind energy, affordable housing, substance abuse treatment centers America, according to most candidates for public office, is rich enough to pay for it. Of course, that fallacy is as dangerous as it is beautiful because it relieves everyone of their need to set priorities. The classroom cliché about guns and butter retains its currency for a reason. Although simplified by forcing a trade-off between only two resources, it reflects the truth that candidates dare not admit: our universe of resources is finite. The economy is only as big as it is, and it will support only a limited amount of public spending. Our nations founders recognized those limits, and they used the Constitution to apply those limits to the Federal government. They enumerated the powers that the Federal government can exercise, and reserved all other powers for individuals or other levels of government. In other words, our nations founders understood that power the absence of limits, and the absence of the need to set priorities tends to corrupt. Without a balanced budget requirement, with no willpower, and with justifications for new and expanded programs from every quarter, our Federal rulers have no limits to their power. They can commit future generations to spending our children and grandchildrens taxes to pay back the loans we take out from all the other countries of the world to pay for all the programs that seem so affordable because were the richest country in the history of the world. The annual Federal budget deficit, more than $300 billion dollars a year, according to the Federal governments cooked books, and the national debt, now more than $8.4 trillion, prove that no matter how few priorities we want to set, no matter how rich we are, we cant run fast enough to keep the pennies off of our eyes. Occasionally, candidates for public office face the uncomfortable question of how to address the Federal governments perennial budget shortfall. That will typically elicit two responses: cut spending, and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Neither solution seems particularly likely to solve the problem of deficit spending or the corruption of absolute power. Congress has proved itself incapable of cutting spending. Congress is so helpless that it actually defines cutting spending as decreasing the projected growth of budget line items. If spending grows at four percent rather than six percent, Congress pats itself on the back for cutting spending, and program supporters squeal that Congress is gutting their sacred cow. And, as demonstrated by the controversy over pork-barrel earmarks, Congress plays a clever game of back-scratching in which members vote for all special-interest earmarks so that no single earmark goes unfunded. The promise to do away with waste, fraud and abuse is even less likely to have any substantial impact. With the deficit running more than ten percent of the entire budget, advocates of this approach need to convince voters and bureaucrats that nearly $15 of every $100 dollars spent by the Federal government including the money that is simply redistributed from you to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare recipients is wasted or stolen. The simple truth is that the richest country in the history of the world simply does not have the resources to meet every demand for funding and respond to everything someone considers a priority. Unfortunately, neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to have any philosophy of government that would allow them to identify which priorities are truly important. Their only apparent philosophy seems to be to seize and hold power, preferably absolute power. The mindless funding of every possible special interest is the obvious tool of their trade. Fortunately, our long-ignored Constitution offers a philosophy that allows us to identify the truly important priorities of our country. The Constitution enumerates the limited powers of our Federal government. If Congress were to do nothing more than attend to those priorities vigorous national defense, an efficient judiciary, productive international trade and relations, investments in communications and transportation infrastructure and allow individuals, institutions, and levels of government to assume responsibility for other priorities, we would make revolutionary progress toward eliminating the national debt and taking advantage of the fruits of being the richest nation in the history of the world. # # # Libertarian candidate for U.S. Congress David Schlosser, 38, lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., where he is a public relations manager for a global microprocessor company and has been a part-time instructor in the School of Communications at Northern Arizona University. He brings nearly a decade of political experience to his campaign for Congress, and is a graduate of Trinity University and the University of Texas. His wife, Anne, is a corporate training and development professional. For more information about Schlosser and his campaign for Arizonas First Congressional District, visit www.SchlosserForCongress.com <http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/> . Authorized and paid for by Schlosser for Congress, Scott Gude, Treasurer [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
