For The Unthankful Among Us

I'd been reading, here and there, about this "Patriotic Millionaires" group who wrote a letter beseeching this administration to raise their taxes. Part of what the letter said, I will quote here:

“Our country has been good to us. It provided a foundation through which we could succeed. Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have.”

Seemed a bit over the top to me in view of the fact that I see a certain amount of patriotism in making the federal government live within their means as most Americans are required to do. King George III systematically raped the colonies so that he could continue to live the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. We can all plainly see what eventually befell George.

A question about the group niggled in my brain. If these "patriotic" Americans felt that way, why don't they just stroke a check and help to reduce the enormous amount of debt that the Treasury is intent on ignoring? Now that is putting your money where your mouth is for sure. The IRS will gladly accept any "charitable" donations I can assure you of that. Stephen King, the noted author, questioned why as a rich, fat cat he is only having to pay a mere 28% on his windfall. If Stephen wants to pay more there is nothing stopping him from picking up his pen.

Then last night I watched an interview where the founder of this "patriotic" group and one of those more than generous millionaires were put on the spot. I'll be darned if she didn't ask the millionaire the question that was swirling in my brain. "If you feel that way," she asked, "Why don't you just write them that extra check?" His response was, "I would if I knew the government wouldn't waste my money." Now that made perfectly good sense to me. How patriotic could the guy be?

The day before that we witnessed Obama playing on this theme. He expounded a bit on the foundation issue explaining to us how the federal government lays the foundation for our continued prosperity which completely discounts the individuals responsibility in all of this. Gosh-a-golly, I've lived all these years not realizing what a bloated, power hungry federal bureaucracy was doing to waste our tax dollars to enhance our prosperity. All the while during that speech he used the word "invest," which in Democrat Party lingo has become synonymous with the word "spend." Sam horse, different color.

Look now folks, he tried to make us understand that without a big federal government we were going to be left hanging in the breeze and our deprivation was going to be the death knell of the nation. And here I was thinking it was going to be all this excessive spending and accumulation of unnecessary national debt. How mistaken I was Mr. President. Without you we are surely doomed!

He then cited China as the model to emulate which toasted my banana. He didn't mention once the fact that China also exploits its people. Next up was South Korea and how they were besting us in teaching math and science. The fact that South Korea spends half of what we do per student never entered his lexicon. He used Brazil as the energy efficiency model for us to follow, yet has told that nation that "we want to become your best customer." He cited their ability to build advanced infrastructures and that half their cars ran on bio-fuels. Lets hope so since we're about to become their best customer.

Then he went on to cry "poor." Knowing all of this, how can anyone have the audacity to say that we can't afford to do the same. How can the greatest nation on earth not be able to sustain the excessive spending we have witnessed in the past is my question and I have the answer. We can no longer afford to do so, whether he is President or not. What I would suggest is that he take a glance at China's, South Korea's and Brazil's national debt figure, combining them with those nation's unfunded liabilities and compare them to ours They can afford to live in LaLaLand, we can't afford to live there anymore.

It's so easy to understand that even a liberal can wrap their heads around it and surely do. The federal government is the owner of our prosperity, therefore is the master of it. So we all need to do now just accept the fact without a huge, overreaching, federal money grabbing stink hole, we'll all be lost in an abysss. Seems we have done that in the past and look where it has gotten us. Therefore we, as patriotic citizens, should feel obligated to pay whatever the federal government sees fit to pick from our pockets. That's the ticket to prosperity and the mark of true patriotism? I don't think so. That was King George's thinking but definitely not my cup of tea. That tea went in the harbor.

Our founding fathers weren't dumb peasants. They knew that the people were the creator of the state, not the other way around. That is the very reason they wrote the US Constitution and created a limited federal government. I suggest that we return to the basics and the original intent of the founding fathers. I prefer not to be a slave to the government. How about you?

How about we reduce the deficit by cutting out all this excessive spending, pass a balanced budget amendment to make sure they can't continue to spend more than they make and put actual "prosperity" and innovation back into the hands of the people where it belongs. And along the way, require teachers to actually teach students and not prepare then to take a test.

There is something to "why" they used the words, "We, the People..." Something to think about.

As Always,

The Frog Prince