SoCo Magazine - May 2008 - (Page 21) rightpage public funding ur state and federal governments spend billions upon billions of dollars every year to fund projects of questionable value. Recently, this magazine has explored a prime example of this type of funding: the sailing vessel Ernestina. But the Ernestina is just one example of many forays into funding projects of a dubious nature. The National Endowment for the Arts has been known to fund artists who dip statues of Jesus in piss, and nearly every Democrat under the sun wants the federal government to fund health insurance for all citizens—as if it’s a birthright! Congress subsidizes profitless farmers to the tune of hundreds of billions so that said farmers can use their corn to produce ethanol, a completely inefficient source of energy, which will not help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil anymore than if I decide to ride a bike for the next week instead of driving. Public school systems distribute condoms on your dime. Rich senior citizens get their prescription medicines subsidized by your hard-earned tax dollars. How about the junkies who get clean needles courtesy of your paycheck? And don’t forget the public universities, where your money is often spent indoctrinating your own children in anti-American propaganda and socialist, class-warfare hate mongering. And of course, how could I forget the public school systems giving a Massachusetts auditorium full of juniorhigh-school kids tips on oral and anal sex, once again, on your dime. I mean, I would have appreciated such information when I was in junior high, but . . . Even when the government spends money on worthwhile endeavors, such as national defense and public education, it still often does so in an inefficient and wasteful manner. But to a certain degree by corey j. silva O this is unavoidable. Whenever someone spends money they didn’t earn, they’ll inevitably spend it foolishly. Since Uncle Sam has no job of his own and gets all of his money from our pockets, the wise course of action is always to restrict government spending to the bare necessities and allow the private sector to fund things such as fine arts or health insurance. It’s not that I simply want to pay fewer taxes, or that I look down on the arts. I’m certainly not some well-to-do Republican who has health insurance (and a McMansion) but doesn’t want to pay for someone else’s. As a matter of fact, I have spent most of my adult life without health insurance, and I only have it now because the state of Massachusetts has made it mandatory and has subsidized it for those in my tax bracket. Since I’m an artist, it would serve the selfish interests of a working-class musician like me to want the government to pay for my health insurance and to fund my artistic ambitions. But I don’t. Why? Because it’s just not right. It’s not American. This country was built on the attributes of self reliance and a strong work ethic, not on the spirit of handouts and government reliance. The American Dream isn’t about guaranteed results, it’s about guaranteed opportunity. We each must earn our own dream ourselves, not have it spoon-fed to us by Uncle Sam. Why should other hard-working taxpayers have to pay for my health insurance, or my guitar, for that matter? Why should they pay for a 100-year-old sailing ship to be restored? In a time of recession and economic uncertainty, why exactly should we pay for rich seniors to have cheap painkillers? When the government runs certain institutions, the outcome is less than successful. Ever been to the Department of Motor Vehicles? How about your town or city hall? Models of efficiency, right? I don’t want the government running my health care, because I know it will screw it up. I’m not an anarchist, or even a “capital L” Libertarian. I have no problem with the government providing the necessities: national defense, public education, police and fire services, etc. I have no problem with the government providing a safety net for my fellow citizens who are the most vulnerable and in need. Should the government do all that is practical to preserve our beautiful American landscape and environment? Of course it should, and I’ll shell out my tax dollars for it without hesitation. But there are many places where the government doesn’t belong, and it’s currently bleeding all over them. This trend of expanding government is as old as the United States itself. Since this country’s inception, we have progressively added layer upon layer, bureau upon bureau, department upon department, program upon program, and this lumbering beast of a government is what has resulted from those efforts. We have long since passed the point where expansion of our federal government resulted in positive change. It’s hard to be optimistic about the prospects of this trend being reversed in any meaningful way when it has accelerated under Republican leadership. If the Republicans can’t shrink our bloated government, you can be damn sure Democrats won’t either. Most critics of George Bush blast him on the Iraq war or on our current economic malaise. I happened to have agreed with the decision to go to war in Iraq. And the fact remains that Bush’s policies were a benefit to our economy, not a detriment. For the vast majority of his two terms, we experienced high growth, low inflation, Continued on page 45
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