Something for Nothing

One of the abiding flaws in the our modern American worldview is that we want and expect something for nothing. For example, we want excellent government services (roads, garbage collection, social security and medicare, military, police, stock market regulators) but we don't want to pay any taxes. That doesn't compute with me. The word 'tax' has become a dirty word in some folk's political lexicon, but it simply means the way citizens pay for the things they want from government. The political mantra 'no new taxes' is fine as far as it goes, but unless you tie it to reduced expectations for government services, then it's a fraud.

In other words, there must be a balanced budget, at whatever level of government you choose (as well as in our personal life). If the nation chooses to go to war in Iraq, then pass the higher taxes to pay for it, don't put it on the federal credit card for the next generation to pay. The government is not paying its way with this war, so the current administration's claim to be 'fiscally conservative' is simply false. Now my fundamental objection to the War in Iraq was on different grounds, but this makes the war even more of a fraud, deception, and immoral.

If, on the other hand, the nation chooses, through its democratically elected representatives, increased government services domestically, whether its universal health care, more college assistance, or what ever, realize that you're probably not going to get a 'tax cut'. How can anyone, including Obama, promise middle class tax cuts while at the same time promising the moon and the stars to everyone? Indeed, with the debt levels we now have, how can we reasonably expect anything but a tax increase?

It is personally and socially immoral to expect something for nothing. Furthermore, pursuit of this as a personal or a national habit will inevitably lead to increasing penury and dependency.