March 24, 2009
Remember when your mother used to tell you that “every cloud has a silver lining”?
If you’re conservative, too, the “cloud” hanging over us is that we don’t run things any more—while big-spending liberals do. Democrats in charge of Congress, along with their smiling lets-go-make-fun-of-Special-Olympics-on-Jay-Leno President Obama, have spent trillions in just two months. Congress is being stampeded by its liberal leaders into passing the biggest spending bills in history—too big even to read before voting—and most of the money won’t have the effect they want.
For the record, I don’t defend the deficit spending of prior Republican Congresses and presidents, either. But a conservative’s primary premise is that “government,” because there’s no individual responsibility or accountability, has no motive to work toward efficiency or effectiveness, and often, has no idea what it’s doing (AIG bonuses?).
What’s in the future? For the moment, set aside the march toward socialism. Already people are concerned about the horrible national debt load on our children and grandchildren, along with the increasing difficulty of getting China to loan our federal government money. But what if there were an official devaluation of currency? What would you do if all the dollars you have saved all your life were suddenly worth dimes?
Millions of regular folks who don’t call themselves conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, are hopping mad—and ultimately, these are the people who say who rules. They are fed up with “bailouts” when no one is bailing them out. Perhaps you’ve heard of “tea parties” scheduled for April 1 (Fools’ Day) or April 15 (IRS Day) in which taxpayers are sending tea bags to both the Congress and the White House.
It’s a reminder of the famous Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, which loudly protested British taxation 2½ years before the Declaration of Independence. This time, though, it’s not just a boisterous minority protesting; it’s that “great silent majority” that Spiro Agnew described in the late 1960s. Today’s headlines said 67% of us want politicians to “give back” their campaign contributions from AIG. I say, “Why not return them to the U.S. Treasury?”
And the tea-bag protests are aimed not at foreign despots, but rather at power-hungry members of Congress who, with the numbers to support them now, do anything they want with the public purse. This could get interesting fast, because this is Americans revolting against Americans. It took America 12 years to throw Republicans out as the controlling party of Congress (1994-2006); for these Democrats, next time, it could come as soon as four years.
The silver lining? In the end, we are headed like a runaway train toward a conservative’s dream—smaller, limited government—first on the local/state level and, in another generation, on the federal level, too. Why? In the middle of a severe economic recession, would you willingly hand over a third of your income to your cousin in New York and tell him or her to spend it, only hoping against hope that you receive “some” benefit? Of course not! But as a federal taxpayer, that’s what you do.
Because the constitutions of North Carolina and other states prohibit deficit spending—unlike the feds—we already see a contraction in state government and of the state’s political subdivisions, the counties. The new Democrat governor, Beverly Perdue, has ordered a “holdback” of 5-10% of funds already budgeted this year. At that, it might come down to whether a football field is mowed by a contractor or by an assistant coach already on the payroll. Next year’s state budget is contracting even more, and eventually, you might see fewer assistant coaches—or teams.
In Caldwell County, as tax revenues decline because so many people have lost their jobs, it’s well-documented that commissioners already have had to scale back the number of employees on the public payroll. The major activity of government across North Carolina is determining what can be cut next with the least political resistance.
Even though the “cloudy” economy is the reason for these rollbacks now, the silver lining, still, is smaller, less costly government in the long-term. It seems a good time to enact a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, doesn’t it? Get ready for 2010 elections and a possible change of the guard in Congress. I think I even saw a cloud today that looked like Thomas Jefferson with a big smile (“That government which governs best, governs least…”).
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