It's a God Save the Bean Counters Thing

Dear America,

 the thing is -- if you are one of the lucky ones who has a job, you are being paid under the parameters of this year's budget.

The Sequester shaves off future funds -- over a decade -- cutting into the future increases built into the budget, based upon the current trajectory of revenue and expenditures.   And as we have discussed ad infinitum, it's not much at that.  It's like cutting one penny from every dollar.

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, government is still set to expand, not contract; government is still set to grow our debt by trillions of dollars over the next ten years even with the implementation of this sequester.

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, government is still ignoring the unfunded liabilities totaling over 80 trillion dollars. 

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, the brand new health care entitlement program -- generally referred to as Obamacare -- is set to not only turn our stellar health care system on it's ear, it will out-maneuver and bankrupt an entire industry...health insurance (and anything remotely related to it)...and one day in the not too distant future, it will be recognized as the straw that broke the camel's back [and that would be America's].

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, the government should cut spending, indeed, and reverting back to the last budget before the stimulus took into effect.  And to do that we would have to go back like, what, four years  or something?   The stimulus funds -- intended for a one-time expenditure -- were counted in and never taken out of the baseline budgets.  

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, the government grows every department anywhere from 3 to 10 percent each and every year!    Does your family spending increase every year like that, even without an increase in revenue?  And how long could you really keep that up (presumably, on credit) if you did?

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, remember where some of those stimulus funds went to?  Let me remind you -- to crazy stupid grants and studies and crapshoot business propositions...by the billions.

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, we are growing -- exponentially -- in dependency upon government; for this is the end result this government wants to create.   Self-reliance is dwindling, exponentially; the fundamentals of independence, free enterprise, duty, responsibility, accountability, hard work, virtue, morality, self-discipline, self-control, checks and balances is evolving into a twisted foreign policy, of sorts.

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

Based upon what we know now, we are growing victims, instead of stalwart citizens.

From Benjamin Franklin, plucked from the pages of The 5000 Year Leap:

"There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh -- get first all the people's money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants forever.  It will be said that we do not propose to establish kings.  I know it.  But there is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government.   It sometimes relieves them from aristocratic domination.  They had rather have one tyrant than 500.  It gives more of the appearance of equality among citizens; and that they like.  I am apprehensive, therefore -- perhaps too apprehensive -- that the government of these states may in future times end in a monarchy.  But this catastrophe, I think, may be long delayed, if in our proposed system we do not sow the seeds of contention, faction, and tumult, by making our posts of honor places of profit.  If we do, I fear that, though we employ at first a number and not a single person, the number will in time be set aside; it will only nourish the fetus of a king (as the honorable gentleman from Virginia very aptly expressed it), and a king will the sooner be set over us."

WE ARE STILL GROWING GOVERNMENT.

We may not have a "king" exactly; what we have is a political power, the power elite -- and this power encompasses the political persuasions and ideologies of both sides of the aisle, seemingly transferable as if through osmosis, or something; overnight, opinions and platforms change, flip, turned totally upside down, opposites somehow attract, as parties meld into one, e pluribus Unum. Hence, the massive government we have today.   It's so big that we, the people, have no idea what's in it (sound familiar?).   It's all part of the control of the people, the money, the property, the pursuit of happiness from one generation to the next.

Oh Benny -- this future unimaginable -- the contention, these factions, tumult, turning our "posts of honor" into "places of profit" -- is here.

God save the bean counters.

Make it a Good Day, G

speaking of the lucky ones with jobs...here's a good story.  This is how America works in real life.  It's about having less reliance on government, and more reliance on ourselves and the kindness of strangers...until they're our boss.  Read all about it here.  Simply beautiful...happy Tuesday.