Government As a Provider - The Land of the Free

Government As A Provider by Jeff Jackson 07/25/03

Note: The contents of this paper is closely related to the concepts discussed in Tax Oppression

Government has many roles in our country. And those roles are clearly defined and enumerated for us in our Constitution. Through the years however a new role of government has emerged in this country. Well, in all honesty it is not a new role, for it has been tried and failed many times throughout history. And that role is one of government as a provider and caregiver for the people.

Now, it is true that government is a provider of sorts. It provides us with security from foreign lands that would seek to conquer our way of life. It also provides us a recourse to deal with our fellow countrymen that would seek to wrong us by infringing upon our true unalienable rights. In a land where government arises from the people the government can not be allowed too much more. For the moment that government becomes too large a provider for the people we have strayed from the intent and wording of our founding documents.

Governments that begin to provide greater and greater amounts to the people tend to do nothing but grow and grow through their own inertia. As governments provide more than the service of recourse to protect the nation's sovereignty and the rights of the people, the call to continually provide more and encompass more people under such programs that are developed to provide grows louder. The larger government grows, the more people that become entwined with it and rely upon it either for a job, services or even a free check as it expands into the larger provider role over the years. And as this base of the populace beholden to the government grows those that are not relying upon the government to provide things outside of its required intent shrinks. And as this portion of the public shrinks it essentially means that they have to shoulder a higher and higher burden of the costs of government. We eventually reach a critical mass where there are more people siphoning off of the government than their are putting into it.

Those that are not suckling at the nipple of bloated government run the risk of becoming enslaved by the government to provide for those that are. Government has to get it's money from somewhere after all. For each person that relys upon government as a provider requires the funding from those that do not.

In the United States we have quite a few categories of people. We have our poor which are better off as a whole than any other nation's poor in the world in terms of the quality of life they lead and the possessions they own. These poor are also generally hard workers that do contribute to keeping society running. We have our working class which support the industry and business of our country and span the range of near poor to those making six figure salaries and managing small businesses. And we have our wealthy that simply don't have to work because of their financial situation.

All of us no matter what category we fall in to help to support this country and allow it to prosper. Every dollar we spend helps to employ people and propel our country. And it prospers under government but not ultimately because of government. And government needs one thing in order to operate - money. And in the United States that money is gathered through taxes. Some of it comes from citizens and some comes from tariffs on foreign citizens doing business here. Some may also argue that some comes from corporations and businesses. They are wrong to do so. Corporations and businesses are legal fictions. They do not exist except in the minds of scholars and in the pages of our tax codes. Such things are at their roots people just like all other people who work only but that they have chosen to do so as a group to reach a goal.

All money raised by government comes from people.

When it comes to income tax the rich pay the lion's share of the taxes of this nation. The upper 10% of income earners pay a little less than 50% of taxes. Generally though it doesn't do much to affect their overall standard of living. I doubt you'll find many multimillionaires that wouldn't like to retain more of their money each year but I don't think that you will also find many that would be hurting because of it. However we must not use this as an excuse to confiscate more of their money than we would of anyone else's. The "because they can afford it" argument fails the test of equal protection under the laws of this nation.

Next comes the working class. While they don't pay as much of the tax burden per capita as the wealthy, generally their salaries are much smaller too. Here the tax burden is often the heaviest simply due to such things. The general perception is that it is harder for a family making $50,000 per year to part with $5,000 in taxes each year than it is for a person making $10 million to part with $4 million. This is the beginning to the class warfare argument that is often used to pit the working class against the wealthy and step up government's role as a provider. And it is also the first place we must begin to stop it. Yes the wealthy make more however they also spend more. Your house is $75,000. Theirs is $2.4 million. The fact that you or I feel that they don't "need" to have that big or expensive a home is irrelevant in the free market.

Trust me, the guy that spends $2.4 million to have a home built has just employed more contractors and businesses than the guy who spends $75,000 on a home.

Finally we come to the poor. And the poor pay little to nothing into the national tax burden; the key flaw of the system. In fact this is where the government's role as provider is most prevalent and entrenched. For while the poor do not contribute to the operational bottom line the vast majority of them do work hard and contribute to society. And as a reward for that contribution, government has seen fit to lavish upon them the most entitlements and benefits paid for by government (taxpayer) money paid from the working class and the rich.

To the poor we offer such programs as food stamps, MedicAid, subsidized housing, the Earned Income Tax Credit, child care reimbursements, and more. Dare I say that the amount of money offered up into the nation's coffers by the poor does not even come close to covering the costs of such programs. And this is where government has really taken over and expanded its role as a provider beyond anything that it was ever intended to do. In addition to those things, the government also regularly provides "bail outs" to businesses (citizens) that fail to operate correctly or just don't have a market for their service and provides countless subsidies to other individuals and businesses to help make ends meet.

Then we have other subsets of citizens. To senior citizens, for example, the government owes social security and medicare after life long contributions by these citizens to pay for other citizens who became senior before them.

Government has created a class (made of many subsets) of citizens to which it now "owes" things and to which it sends money collected from another segment of the population. Often times these forced redistributions of wealth are done because of perceived needs or compassion. But in the end it is ultimately a tyrannical process where money is forcibly confiscated under the threat of legal punishment and then given to others because they "need" it. And this is not the role of government nor should it be because it ultimately serves only two purposes. First it creates an ever growing class of citizens beholden to government and that have a vested interest in continually voting in politicians who support such programs. Second is that as this constituency grows government solidifies power over the a greater portion people that it provides for because they receive from the government.

We look at this forcible redistribution of wealth and it is scary. It is scary because it isn't legal for you or I as a private citizen to go into another person's earnings and take what we "need" to better ourselves. However we mandate that government does it; our government of the people.

The government decides that a person needs something so it goes to another person and takes from them in order to provide for the needs of the first. Not only that but the money must enter the government first and is whittled away before it eventually reaches the hands of those that the government decides needs it to the point where pennies on the dollar are actually spent on these "needs" compared to what is collected.

When did it become the role of government to decided who needs what and then to be the administer of these needs? And even more when did it become the role of government to decide that another citizen granted equal protection under the law must provide the means to another person to meet those needs?

And by making one segment of society enslaved to government by government providing for them things that most will never willingly turn down, government has enslaved all people under its jurisdiction. It has enslaved those that it provides to by the promise of free money, services or what not. It has enslaved those that it does not provide to on the basis of they are ultimately the ones that will pay for the free money, services and what not.

If we allow our nation to teeter too far and provide for people too much eventually government's control over people becomes absolute. When those that slave and work to provide the money government needs to give to others stand up to rebel, those that receive will stand with government to squelch their cries. And if their numbers are great enough to conquer the rebellion then the oppression and servitude of all people of the United States will be completed and all will loose the rights of all free men.

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