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Parting Shots

By Wm. R. Lowry
Editor & Publisher, MiBiz
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note-able quotes
“All creatures are united to God alone in an immediate union. They depend essentially and directly upon Him. Being all alike equally impotent, they cannot be in reciprocal dependence upon one another.”
— Nicolas Malebranche

“Once the government becomes the supplier of people’s needs, there is no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right.”
— Lawrence Auster

“The nature of the encroachment upon American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer; it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness and downright venality swallow up the whole of society.”
— John Adams  

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
— Thomas Jefferson

greecy spoon
According to The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis (CDA), the worst fears expressed some 200 years ago by Patriot and President John Adams have sadly come to pass and truly portend dire consequences for all 21st century Americans.

Consider the CDA’s latest findings that: (1) Americans’ dependence on government grew by 13.6 percent in 2009, (2) That the Government Dependency Index has grown by 49 percent since 2001, and (3) Americans’ dependence on their government was 14 times greater in 2009 than it was in 1962.

It has become crystal clear that the well-meaning policymakers who authored America’s benevolent “social safety net” failed to foresee (or purposely spawned) an increasing array of programs that create and sustain a never-ending cycle of dependence – and entitlement thinking.

Even the most math-challenged among us can comprehend that the more people there are that depend on government subsidies for much or all of their existence, the smaller the percentage of taxpaying citizens who finance those subsidies.

The Tax Foundation reported recently that the percentage of tax returns filed that required no taxes to be paid in 2008 passed 35 percent.

Even more of a wake-up call, the Tax Policy Center says that the percentage of all taxpaying units – single, married filing jointly, head of household, married filing separately – who paid no taxes in 2009 is close to 47 percent.

The International Monetary Fund now predicts that U.S. public-sector debt will equal 100 percent of GDP by 2015 unless immediate action is taken to cut the deficits by some 12 percent of GDP.

The IMF, meantime, says woeful Greece, the current laughingstock of international governance, needs to cut its deficits by a mere 9 percent of output.

An impending tipping point for the structure of our American government, not to mention civil society itself, is now very close at hand.

So, too, is the end of Uncle Sam’s generous silver spooning.

note-able quotes
“Repeal that (welfare) law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. ... Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.”
— Benjamin Franklin

“The task of weaning various people and groups from the national nipple will not be easy. The sound of whines, bawls, screams and invective will fill the air as the agony of withdrawal pangs finds voice.”
— Linda Bowles

“Can the real Constitution be restored? Probably not. Too many Americans depend on government money under programs the Constitution doesn’t authorize, and money talks with an eloquence Shakespeare could only envy. Ignorant people don’t understand The Federalist Papers, but they understand government checks with their names on them.”
— Joseph Sobran

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