Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth Out Of The Government?
Foster Friess wrote a column on “what the mega-rich do for America.” It’s a good read and a good perspective, but there’s a particular section of the piece that applies to a much broader audience.
Our society would be a lot better off if everybody’s tax rates were lowered. Yet the rich people I know would be willing to pay more in taxes if they felt that it was good for our country.
The trouble is not just that it enlarges government; it also creates divisiveness. For example, if you want to buy a Cadillac and I want to buy a Ford, we go to our respective dealers and we’re both happy. But if the government starts issuing automobiles, suddenly you and I become political enemies over how we position our favorite car. We have so many government activities that divide us. If it were left to the private sector, people would not have those animosities.
Here are some other reasons why American taxpayers aren’t eager to feed the beast: $700,000 was sent to Thailand to discern if pig flatulence could be used as a renewable energy source; $500,000 was allocated to study shrimp on a treadmill; $1.9 million sent to China to study the drinking habits of prostitutes on the job! One million dollars to spread poetry in America’s zoos and $55 million to improve infant mortality–in Jakarta, Indonesia!
More recently, President Obama forgave a $1 billion loan to Egypt. How smart does this look now–especially when our embassy in Cairo is under siege and even Obama is forced to admit that Egypt isn’t our ally? The new Egyptian government, headed by the Muslim Brotherhood that our spurned friend, Hosni Mubarak, had previously outlawed, has become far less favorable to the United States, and the even more fundamentalist Salafis are on the rise–all of which doesn’t bode well for our reliable ally Israel.
When conservatives complain about the government wasting money, what do we hear? Oh, you don’t like street signs? You have a problem with roads? You don’t want more police officers on the streets? But, those are the areas almost everyone agrees on. If liberals think we should be studying pig flatulence, prostitutes, and forgiving a billion dollars worth of Egyptian debt, why don’t they offer those up as examples of what we should be spending money on? After all, if it’s so important we all pay our “fair share” to cover those programs, why don’t liberals want to defend it? Foster Friess is asking and other Americans should make the same point every time liberals try to use those already stale lines of argument.