It is no secret that I am a conservative and as such, I believe strongly in the inspired principles upon which our great nation was founded. Principles embraced in the Declaration of Independence: liberty, independence, self-determination, self-reliance, personal responsibility, and especially limited government. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration, stated, "A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
Jefferson also listed the reasons why America needed to break free from King George III's rule in the Declaration. I find some of these reasons interesting: "He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance . . . For imposing taxes on us without our consent . . . for enlarging [government's] boundaries . . . altering fundamentally the forms of our governments." I only cite to these reasons to show that Jefferson and the other forefather patriots did not care for big government's excessive control over their lives, their property, their wealth, and their liberty.
Politicians in today's America are elected because they promise that government will provide free this, free that, and universal such and such. All these promises sound fantastic! However, these programs will lead to the formation of a welfare state. All of those 'free' programs will be run by the federal government. And as we all know, the federal government has always set the gold standard for efficiency and quality! In reality, these social programs are anything BUT free. For example, President Obama's new budget (ironically titled, "A New Era of Responsibility") asks for 600 billion + for only the first "down payment" on universal health care. How much will the final bill be if the first down payment is just 600 billion? These social programs cost trillions of dollars which the taxpayers will have to pay back sooner or later. This means significantly higher taxes - which means less liberty, freedom, and taxpayer independence.
But there are more serious problems which flow from the creation of a welfare state: more dependence on and addiction to government bailouts, handouts, and diminished incentives to be self-reliant and make good choices. Just look around at what is happening. It is easy to see that the government is ever-ready to step in between the choices we make as individuals and corporations and the consequences of those actions. Get in over your head on a house you knew you couldn't afford? Buy too many things with your credit card? Underwrite too many sub-prime mortgages? Mismanaged your car company? No problem!! Because you're "too big to fail," we'll just send the outrageous bill to fix everything to the future generations of taxpayers. A government that becomes a huge safety net for all of our problems greatly weakens our collective society. I definitely subscribe to something Jen said a while ago "THE FREE MARKET RULES! It just hurts a little sometimes."
Here is a good story illustrating the dangers of becoming more dependent on handouts found in this month's Ensign. The talk is called "The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance," by Elder Marion G. Romney.
He quotes a story from the Reader's Digest: "In our friendly city of St. Augustine great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don't know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the seagulls. The birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets. Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the 'something for nothing' lure! They sacrificed their independence for a handout.
A lot of people are like that too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government's 'shrimp fleet.' But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come? Let's not be gullible gulls. We must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence."
Elder Romney then prophetically says, "The practice of coveting and receiving unearned benefits has now become so fixed in our society that even men of wealth, possessing the means to produce more wealth, are expecting the government to guarantee them a profit. Elections often turn on what the candidates promise to do for voters from government funds. This practice, if universally accepted and implemented in any society, will make slaves of its citizens. We cannot afford to become wards of the government, even if we have a legal right to do so. It requires too great a sacrifice of self-respect and political, temporal, and spiritual independence."
While acknowledging that there are many problems with the status quo and sincerely hoping that things get turned around, I cannot support the current aggressive shift towards a welfare state because of the consequences I have outlined. I will instead support policies which promote more self-reliance, less dependence on government, and more individual freedom and liberty. I feel that, in the end, these principles will lead us out of the current economic storm - not huge increases in borrowing, spending, taxing, and bigger government and bureaucracies . PLEASE COMMENT! I'm anxious to hear what you think. Sorry for the length of this post.
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Y'all obviously already know my feelings about all this, so for those of you who don't want to read my whole post I'll give you my conclusion right now: this whole thing is all about politics. Now I'll tell you how I got there:
The first point has to do with the whole Keynesian spending debate. I was listening to an economic podcast the other day where they were talking about what lead to the recession, and it was interesting because the guy said that the Keynesian system has been basically rejected since the 60s. He admitted that there are some Keynesians out there, but they haven't represented mainstream economics. Anyway, it got me thinking about it, and I think there's a really simple explanation.
Keynesian economics posits that a lagging market will be spurred back to productivity by basically throwing (borrowed) money at it. There is a fundamental problem with this, however: when that money is used on what is called "stimulus spending" such as all the programs we saw in the stimulus package that recently passed, it is only TEMPORARY. This is basic common sense: if you have to borrow money to create a job, then that job will vanish as soon as the money runs out.
Now what I take it Keynesians rely on is that the economy has "grown" in the meantime, so the market is sufficiently stronger after the stimulus spending so it can now support those jobs on its own. But you see that's what I don't get. How does that work? It necessarily begs the question as to what was the real problem in the first place? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Keynesian answer be that "we weren't spending enough money?" That would HAVE to be the Keynesian answer, wouldn't it? If that wasn't our initial problem, then spending more money would by definition have absolutely no effect on the initial problem.
So is that accurate? I personally think it misses the point: the question ISN'T WHETHER we aren't spending enough, but WHY aren't we spending enough? On that point Keynes doesn't have much of an answer: to him it doesn't really matter. I happen to disagree, however: if people have A GOOD REASON to spend less, then spending borrowed money won't do anything. All you really have to do is fix whatever the problem is--whatever is dissuading people from spending on their own. In fact, that's really all you can do. Obama can spend 10 trillion dollars on the economy, but the way it is he will only be delaying the inevitable rather than actually fixing it.
Here's what I'm getting at: what's the ultimate source of "jobs" or (more importantly) productivity? Is it a bunch of pieces of paper signed by important people in Washington? No, not really. The real source of jobs and productivity (at least in America) is the private sector or the market. Ultimately that's what everything comes back to: people working in the private sector to create valuable things for other people to use. All government ever does is allocate or reallocate these resources and products. They don't go out and do their own work and make their own things to sell to other people: they take earnings from individual participants in the private sector and use them to do certain things. State employees are ultimately paid by a capitalist market. One would do well to read Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" because that's essentially what I'm getting at.
Anyway, the real point here is that all this "stimulus" is temporary except for the portions of it that do support the private sector (I forget the specifics). They were careful to try to elongate that temporary period I think, because the spending is supposed to continue gradually for ten years. But when that period is over, and we have to start repaying the debt with nothing to artificially "stimulate" the market, then we'll fall right back to where we are now.
Now this is where politics comes in, because I think it's intentional. We conservatives talk about the "nanny state" as the joke of a punch-line, but liberals actually love that idea. As long as we can keep playing the class warfare game then who cares if we're reliant on government? We look at Europe with fear and disgust, they look at it with admiration and excitement. When I say "liberals" I don't necessarily mean everyone who voted Democrat. I'm mainly thinking of the leadership: Obama, Pelosi, Reid, party leaders. I think they know all of this, but, being liberals, they LOVE the idea of a nation full of people COMPLETELY DEPENDENT on government to solve all their problems, because that keeps them in POWER. They WANT there to be more and more bailouts, because that means the money gets funneled through bureaucracy.
Most people talk about this economically (like I did at the beginning of this) but that's not looking at the whole picture. This whole thing has always been about politics, pure and simple. In this case the economics have been informed by the politics: the dems have resurrected Keynesian economics because IT BENEFITS THEM. They don't give a rat's (you-know-what) as long as they stay in power. I'm not saying the Republicans were any better over the last 8 years, but it's hypocritical to use that as an excuse. You're supposed to LEARN from mistakes, NOT REPEAT them.
So as far as this post is concerned, I liked it. I liked the quotes, I liked the nice story, and I agreed with most of it. However, I do not think the point of the stimulus is to turn us into hand-fed birds. America will never survive without the free-market, capitalism, and competition. But sometimes, a people and a nation are in such dire need of help, we can't stand by and watch. Let me relate another story about Sea Gulls. The Utah state bird is the Sea Gull because of a miracle that happened in the 1800's I believe. Mormon crickets had invaded the crops of the early Mormon pioneers. They tried everything to kill them, but to no avail. Conditions were perfect for these crickets to multiply like rabbits on fertility drugs. With almost all hope gone, certain starvation to come, all the pioneers had was prayer, and God. And God came with His Sea Gulls. They ate as many crickets as they could, flew to a nearby river, and threw them up, then went back for more until all the crickets were gone. Needless to say, they were helped in a time of need. Now I am in no way saying that Barack Obama is God and the stimulus package are the Sea Gulls, but I see a lot of similarities in the two situations. Hard working people have lost their jobs, the auto industry, banking industry, and potentially millions of other businesses affected by the economic downturn are close to failure. They have been invaded by "Mormon Crickets." Do we stand by and let them fail? Should we let the free market run its course, cause thousands of bankruptcies and let America go hungry? No. Something needed to be done, and someone stepped up to do it. The Sea Gulls have come, the stimulus is hopefully going to stimulate, and the Mormon Crickets will hopefully be gone by 2011 or I was wrong and I'll vote for Mitt Romney.
Even if you don't agree with me, you have to at least admit my response was clever =)
Creighton, loved your clever, tongue-in-cheek response. Here's my reaction ;)
1. I didn't claim that the "point of the stimulus" was to turn us into hand-fed birds. I think the dems have good intentions of turning this ship around. However, spending like there is no tomorrow will do more harm than it will good, in my opinion. One of the consequences (unintended, perhaps) of the stimulus is that it ultimately makes it easier for people to solely rely on government (instead of themselves - self reliance) to tuck them safely into bed every night, promising freedom from any economic problem or worry, or to "guarantee them a profit," as Elder Romney said. This is where you and I disagree. It seems like you see this as the government's proper role, and I don't.
Moving on, your sea gull analogy, while clever, overlooked a few important points:
2. There were no strings attached when God sent the sea gulls to eat the crickets. He didn't require that "your children have to do this, or give up that" before He 'bailed out' the pioneers. There are plenty of strings tied to this stimulus money, which is why many governors are refusing to accept some of it. They don't want to be burdened with government's strict rules and regulations in return for taxpayer dollars.
3. What's more, God didn't require anything of future pioneer generations in return for the sea gull miracle. He didn't bump the 10% tithing recommendation to 30%, 40%, or 50%, as an example. But the sheer enormity of the spending going on right now under Obama will CERTAINLY require more of the next generations in the form of significantly higher taxes. You've already admitted as much after doing the math.
4. And lastly, God wasn't rewarding poor decisions and bad behavior by sending the sea gulls. The cricket epidemic had nothing to do with anything the pioneers had previously done. Whereas now, there is plenty of blame to go around for the current crisis. We probably disagree on this, but I personally believe that there are many aspects of the stimulus package that DO reward irresponsibility and bad behavior. Check out Rick Santelli on YouTube for just one example of what I'm talking about.
Anyway, those are the big differences I see between your sea gull analogy and the scary reality of the stimulus.
I will add a #5 to Devin's list:
The problem with the seagull story is that when God sent the seagulls they actually ate the crickets and the crickets were actually gone. This stimulus is only a false bottom to a plummeting market, in hopes that the market will be tricked into thinking that it has reached its bottom when in reality it has not.
We as a nation have borrowed approximately five years into our future at the standard rate. Typically the bottom is just below that five year average meaning that we need to loose those five years of undisciplined borrowing before the market will right its self.
The stimulus is an attempt to trick the market that it has reached its bottom (false bottom) by borrowing further into the future. Seems to be a remix of the same mistake only it is the executive branches turn to buy a house they cant afford, and seeing as how we all have to live in it, I honestly say "good luck".
This morning on the radio I heard a country song all about this stimulus bailout and how in the real world "they are shuttin' Detroit down." See, even the country stars know that this stimulus thing is no good. :) I also heard that GM is asking for more money. They have already received over $30 billion dollars and want $7 billion more. Don't you think if the first bailout and the second didn't work, that a third wouldn't work any better? I know that we are kind of in tough times right now, but all these handouts are only going to make the problem worse. We need to be patient, suck it up, and let the market correct itself. Home prices were higher then they have ever been. It is only natural that they need to fall. I know some people are going to lose money on their homes, but having us pay for their bad loans is not going to fix the problem. Some things are just better left alone. Devin and I were talking the other day about how you can't appreciate the good times unless you go through the bad. Too bad that this economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
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ya know Dev, when I read the part in your comment about the strings being attached and requiring things of future generations, it made me think of a mob boss :). It's like we as a nation developed a really bad gambling habit (Duke economist Mike Munger compares the lending patterns to playing roulette)and got in way over our heads, and we turn to this mob boss (the government) who gives us the money to bail us out...but now he basically owns us until we pay him back, which will probably involve many severe beatings before all is said and done. I think that comparison fits perfectly to what's going on here, better than god-sent seagulls anyway. Creighton pointed out that Obama isn't like God nor the bailout like the seagulls (though one wonders how the comparison has any relevance, then) and I wholeheartedly agree: HE'S A MOB BOSS :)
It may feel like a "godsend" right now, but people (especially voters) are infamous for their short memories. As soon as what little benefit there is wears off, we're going to have nothing but a really bitter taste in our mouths.
The truth is people are never going to learn responsibility as long as they are completely insulated from the consequences of their actions, because there's no incentive to. People are acting like capitalism doesn't work because it hurts, but they've got it backwards: capitalism works BECAUSE it hurts. In fact, the more it hurts the BETTER, because we will do anything to avoid facing those bitter consequences again. You can't act like an idiot and then expect it to pay off for you. You reap only what you sow. The free market didn't fail us; we failed it first. Capitalism is like the lecturing parent that you hate listening to but are better off for it in the end.
Sorry for another rant, I just get frustrated with all these people whining about capitalism when they absolutely don't understand it. They would do well to read Friedrich Hayek--he explains all this a lot better than I do.
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