Herman

Cain

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July 7, 2008

Will the Fourth of July Become Dependence Day?

The founding fathers of this country had a passion to be independent of the persistent tyranny and irresponsibility of the then-king of England, George III. They even delineated many of his abuses toward the American colonies in our nation’s most landmark document, the Declaration of Independence.

The founders felt so strongly about these abuses that it led to a revolution against Great Britain, which ultimately led to our independence.

Our independence today is not bound by any external sovereign power, although we are under constant threat of a different kind of external tyranny – Islamic fascism. However, our independence today is threatened by a similar kind of irresponsibility, our own federal government.

We must accept the fact that the threat of Islamic fascism will be with us indefinitely, which has prompted us to develop new defenses against this worldwide network of terrorism. But we can not accept the growing list and magnitude of irresponsibility by our own government toward its people.

Our founders would hardly recognize the nation today with the list of issues we have created and allowed to grow to threatening proportions.

Our free market system has created the most successful economy in the world, and perhaps in history. Due to its success, our economy has been saddled with regulations and taxes that have slowed its growth and world competitiveness, but it has thrived in spite of these barriers.

Some of the regulations have been necessary, but the taxation has been excessive as evidenced by people being taxed on earned income, and then taxed again on investment income and then taxed again when they die.

The most current economic threat is that tax rates will once again increase if Congress simply does nothing before the end of 2010, and once again those increases will slow our economy and possibly send it into a recession.

Sadly, Congress has shown that it is real good at doing nothing.  

Congress’s collective excuse for confiscating more revenue from the people is to feed the tsunami of federal spending which has been allowed to get out of control. This persistent fiscal irresponsibility would certainly cause our founders to start another revolution.

“We the people” have never objected to paying taxes for just causes such as wars and national security, but the bulk of fiscal overspending today is for social insecurity with no end in sight.

When the founders severed all relations with Great Britain, they also severed any dependence on any British-made goods. They found all the natural resources they needed in the new land to be totally independent of any new exploitation by Britain.

There would be no need for any more Boston Tea parties.

But over the last 100 years we have allowed this country to become dependent on a new exploitation from external powers – namely, for energy. We are already experiencing this exploitation through the price of oil and gasoline, and it will only get worse, because Congress continues to impede the use of all of our natural resources to counter foreign exploitation.

Former President Ronald Reagan’s quote on how government works is painfully too true: “If it moves, tax it. If it moves too fast, regulate it. And if it stops moving then subsidize it.”

We need a new revolution, not with bombs and bullets, but with votes and voices from we the people. Otherwise, our annual July 4^th Independence Day celebration could become just another Memorial Day . . . “Dependence Day”.

Our founders would not allow that to happen, and nor should we.

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