Here’s a quote that resonates with me today

09 Apr, 2011 by TrogloPundit

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…every single voter who is benefitting from a government program right now not only wants to continue benefitting, but believes they have a moral right to do so.

Word. On Thursday, I spent eight long hours at a public hearing. The subject: Wisconsin’s proposed state budget.

The testimony fell into one or more of four categories:

Don’t reduce spending on my program;

Raise taxes on the rich/stop taking from the needy and giving to the greedy;

Spend more on my program;

You Republicans are all assholes.

I may be paraphrasing, but not inaccurately. That was basically it.

And in one way, that’s all right. Hey, we can agree to disagree sometimes on whether this or that program is important enough to warrant greater spending. We can agree to disagree on whether a more socialistic tax policy will benefit more people over the longer term than a more individualistic policy.

We can also agree to disagree on whether we’re all assholes, although I’m perfectly ready to agree with you on that one. I only wish it were more true.

Tell you what, though: just once, I’d like to hear a liberal/progressive, amid the angry screeching about corporate giveaways, admit that they’re demanding someone else’s money.

Just. Once. “Yes, you should take money away from someone else and then to give it to me.” “I demand that you take money from millions of my neighbors and spend it on…” “My right to this entitlement is greater than their rights to property!”

Something like that. Just one time.

You may believe that corporate profits are dirty. You may believe that “the rich” are greedy, insensitive people who’d rather make another buck than see a homeless person eat. You may believe that your favored program is a public good so important that only the evil among us could possibly oppose spending more money on it, regardless of how much money we’re already spending on it.

But you should never ignore the fact that rich people’s money belongs to them. Corporate profits belong to the shareholders (who are more likely to be middle-class than rich). It’s their property, not ours. By demanding greater government spending, we necessarily reduce the individual’s right to property.

And that affects everybody, both rich and poor.

(Posted by Lance Burri, a.k.a. The TrogloPundit)