Herman

Cain

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September 10, 2007

Liberals Gone Wild: The Government Big Enough to Give You Everything

Michael Bloomberg wants to subsidize deadbeat dads, John Edwards wants to subsidize people’s savings accounts and an unidentified group of liberals in Congress want to give every child born in this country a free savings account, according to a pair of Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page articles by Jim Wooten and Rourke O’Brien, respectively, on September 4, 2007.

Of course, they want to do this with other people’s money – our money, tax dollars.

These new spending ideas are no longer about the American dream. They really do want to create the American nightmare.

Even though this country is headed for bankruptcy if something is not done to reform the Social Security system, restructure entitlement programs (which started out as assistance programs) and restrict Congress’s appetite for spending, Bloomberg, Edwards and a bunch of spending cowards want to accelerate the financial ruin of this country. Liberals have given away so much of our money to gain political power that they are now devising new creative ways to fan the politics of envy.

Mayor Bloomberg’s rationale is that unwed fathers increase poverty, and the government should take steps to get them back with their families. As Bloomberg states in a speech to the National Press Club recently, “We have to increase the rewards for work.” Give me a break!

How about these steps? You can go home and take care of your kids or you can go to jail, and the reward for work is not going to jail or starving to death. Granted, there are some disincentives for unwed fathers to stay unwed in the convoluted tax code, but being a father starts with being responsible. It does not start with a tax break.  

Edwards is proposing his “Get Ahead Accounts” to provide matching dollars for working families who save. This is inspired by the dismal average national savings rate of zero that most families have fallen to.

Once again, Edwards’s liberal tendency is that government is the answer to every problem, even if the answer is an absolutely dumb idea. Individuals and families make choices, and no government program is going to eliminate the bad, though unfortunate, choices in life.

O’Brien says in his column that creating a Children’s Savings Account for every child in America is a bold idea shared by some Democrats and Republicans. Yes, it is a bold idea, but a bad idea.

Social Security was a good idea until the politicians changed the law to allow Social Security contributions to be used for general federal spending. And when Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma introduced a bill in the Senate to require use of Social Security funds only for Social Security benefits, it was overwhelmingly defeated. So much for a bold idea that went bad.

Thomas Jefferson warned of the dangers of big government when he said, “A government big enough to give you everything you need is strong enough to take everything you have.”

The liberals are certainly well on their way to taking everything we have with promises of universal health care, runaway entitlements, mortgage bailouts, tax incentives for deadbeat dads, government paid savings accounts for every child and much more to come. Just tax those evil rich people some more and the American dream will become a guarantee on our way to a nightmare.

I can only imagine the next bold idea would be to establish a federal Department of Happy. Let’s not say that too loud. The liberals might think it’s a good idea.

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