Paradise on a platter

Politicians promise each American his dream. We have three colorful candidates still in the race for President who offer an extravagant dinner platter of benefits and aid. Candidates have and will continue to offer and promise more and more goodies beyond the current power and purse of government. Hillary and Barack claim higher taxes will pay for the feast. Once upon a time, when politicians made promises, a few men, of little faith, used to inquired timidly where the money was coming from. Such questions are now laughingly waived aside with the simple answer that we just put more taxes on the greedy corporations and the rich. It’s vital to our country’s health to remember that liberalism is based upon the unending expanse of government.

What about the wonderful dessert of the tax incentives that are in the mail in May? They will be distributed by a complicated rate payment scale that doles out greater portions to the poor and citizens who do not pay taxes. Wealthy individuals do not benefit. Thank goodness you say, I’m poor. But rebate checks are not the whole story. The promise of better things to come with a change of administration in Washington is deceptive because new programs will supposedly equalize opportunity and income but at the expense of taxpayers. If the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, the personal income tax burden will be driven up by 25% - the highest point relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in history. Marginal tax rates will rise across the board, ranging from a 13% increase for the highest income households to a 50% increase in tax rates of the lower-income ones. The long-term capital gains tax rate will rise by 1/3, the marriage penalty will be re-imposed, the estate tax will roar back with a top rate of 55%, the child credit will be cut and the alternative minimum tax will affect 25 million more tax filers. Whew! Don’t think you’ll be excused from the smorgasbord table.

Promises from candidates keep being made. Mortgage rescues are already promised even though the housing crisis has evolved from bad credit loans and risky borrowing procedures. Our present mortgage crisis is both real and imagined. Education is covered because anyone can obtain a student loan with deferred payments. Utilities are assisted by HEAP for heating and cooling bills, and food stamps are available to households even with two working parents. Why don’t politicians also offer furniture, clothing, stoves and refrigerators, books and musical instruments along with their present presents to millions of people? Oh wait, we also have Community Action Commissions to assist with cooking and food preservation via appliance vouchers. Who will need churches and Goodwill Industries for clothing or furniture emergencies if the government provides backup? A congressional pork subsidy just passed now provides for free golf lessons ... you get the picture.

Be aware that politicians practice mushy thinking. The newly minted Ohio Easy Play lottery games perfectly illustrate this. Citizens are encouraged to have fun with Easy Play Lottery Games to "benefit schools" that have already been proven to be bureaucratic failures and financial money pits. And any linguist can translate the final words of Easy Play ads, "Play responsibly," into "gamble responsibly." The state legally encourages individuals to impoverish themselves while having fun as they finance government programs that alleviate the problems of impoverished citizens. Not to be undone in irony, radio ads also push a new program from Governor Strickland that encourages more people to save. Why save when the government gives?

Mushy- brained policies from politicians with the mixed-up magic of a Mephistopheles and the physical repulsion of a Medusa, show no understanding of laissez faire economics ( from the French let do) meaning let each person make his own way and do his own thing. Private enterprise produces, not government or bureaucracy. A liberal company like Starbucks won’t even allow the words ‘laissez faire’ on one of their gift cards. A liberal government under a Hillary or a Barack or even under McCain’s because of some of his economic positions, will stifle traditional American self-sufficiency.

The government cannot give anything to A without first or ultimately taking it from B. When a candidates say she will give federal aid to states or "not forget Southern Ohio," she knows that the federal government has nothing to give that doesn’t first come from the people. Yet the illusion of an urgency for government intervention is being marketed and sold to the public. Ask yourself how often your plate has been literally empty so that you must beg government for a chicken leg. Nanny Government is only going to reply, "Sorry my dear voting child, you must kill the chicken and bring it to me first." Now, we know the chicken is not really a chicken leg; all is not as it seems in politics, love and war. The chicken leg represents your laissez faire rewards in the form of money, self-sufficiency and ambition. Paradise is not served up on a government platter. There is no free lunch.