Selling Our Posterity Down the River

Over this past week much of the news has surrounded the "stimulus" package that has been debated in our nation's capitol. The President has claimed that the time for debate is over as has Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D) and to some extent others in both the House and Senate. Whenever any kind of salesman tells you that you have to act now. What is your first reaction? For me, I start looking for the fastest way out of their before I get trapped into a deal that I'll regret. Why should our reaction be any different because it's a politician saying the same thing? Truth be told, when a politician tells us that "the time for debate is over" or "we have to pass this now," our reaction should be to stop them and place your hands firmly on your wallet before they take it from you.

The only thing this stimulus bill is going to do for the nation is put us deeper in debt and slide us further down into recession and closer to depression. We can tell that Wall Street and other investors aren't happy with the prospects of living under the bill. On Feb 9, 2009 the Dow closed at 8,270.87 which was down ten points from the previous day. The next morning the market opened with the Dow already down 65 points. This was only a preview of what the rest of the day was going to be like. By closing bell the Dow had dropped to 7,888.88 which was a 4.8% drop. What will the markets do in the future is anybodies guess but if 1928 is an indicator of what we have to look forward to you better brace yourself because the worst is yet to come.

I would raise my objections to the stimulus bill by asking about the constitutionality of it but I know that will only fall on deaf ears. Who wants to hear about the Constitution and enumerated powers when the government is handing out "free" money. For those who don't see a problem with this, I ask you, "Are you so selfish as to condemn your posterity to a life of bondage?" Alexander Tytler wrote;

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

I understand that we are not a democracy but are a representative republic or a constitutional republic. But the point is still valid.

If we are to believe what the politicians are saying, the bill must be passed or we're doomed. Didn't they say the same thing in October and November about the bailout bills and stimulus packages? They claimed that those bills were what was needed to fix the economy. All the bills did was to hurt the economy even more; prolonging the time it will take for the economy to recover. The economy can't always go up. There will always be short periods of economic downturns, that is the natural course of events. Even when there are downturns, as long as the government doesn't meddle with it, they will only last for a short period of time before the markets bounce back.

Trust in capitalism they won't let you down. The only thing you can count on when the government is in charge of the economy or business is misery and lines. Look at the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe under communism, China, and any other communist or socialist nation. All they had or have is misery, shortages, a crumbling infrastructure, and failed central planning. What makes us think that we can expect anything different.