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The Patriot Post Brief 08-41
From The Federalist Patriot
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INSIGHT“A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?” - Marcus Tullius Cicero
LIBERTY“Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis warned, ‘The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.’ The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government. While imperfect in its execution, the founders of our nation sought to make an exception to this ugly part of mankind’s history. Unfortunately, at the urging of the American people, we are unwittingly in the process of returning to mankind’s normal state of affairs. Americans demand that Congress spend trillions of dollars on farm subsidies, business bailouts, education subsidies, Social Security, Medicare and prescription drugs and other elements of a welfare state. The problem is that Congress produces nothing. Whatever Congress wishes to give, it has to first take other people’s money. Thus, at the root of the welfare state is the immorality of intimidation, threats and coercion backed up with the threat of violence by the agents of the U.S. Congress. In order for Congress to do what some Americans deem as good, it must first do evil. It must do that which if done privately would mean a jail sentence; namely, take the property of one American to give to another... There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter - more government control over our lives.” - Walter Williams
THE GIPPER“Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream, or genetically. And it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it’s gone and gone for a long, long time. Already, many of us, particularly those in business and industry, there are too many who have switched rather than fight. And it’s time that particularly, some of our corporations learned, that when you get in bed with government, you’re going to get more than a good night’s sleep.” - Ronald Reagan
GOVERNMENT“The financial services sector is over-leveraged and too large. Winding this down will, indeed, impose painful costs. Congress is seeking to explicitly transfer these costs to taxpayers, who will underwrite a new government plan devised to correct the old government plans. Taxpayers are being called upon to make a significant sacrifice, with little evidence to suggest that the troubled markets will be settled. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the latest intervention will delay the required adjustments in the financial services sector. The $700 billion intervention is just the largest, latest in a series of failed bailouts with no guarantee that the desired outcome will even be achieved. As a Public Choice professor, I used to begin class each semester with Armey’s Axiom number one: ‘The market is rational and the government is dumb.’ Those quick to call for more regulation forget the power of markets, and refuse to acknowledge government culpability in the current mess. Time and again, governments the world over have attempted to outsmart the market and the current legislation is no exception. And time after time, markets respond, toppling the best-laid government plans as they move to correctly price the underlying assets in exchange.” - former House Republican Leader Dick Armey
FOR THE RECORD“The Senate version of the financial bailout bill - an emergency measure designed (we thought) to keep the world economy from tumbling into a deep recession - has been ornamented with special favors. Glancing through this bill, you find that Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum makers get a tax break, as do certain commercial fisherman and others who were affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Makers of wooden arrows for children’s toys are remembered, along with rural schools. There’s a duty suspension on wool products, and television production companies get a break on expensing rules. Mental illnesses (including substance abuse) are to receive parity with other disorders in private insurance coverage, and geothermal heat pump systems will get favorable tax treatment. An estimated 24 million middle-class households would be relieved from paying the Alternative Minimum Tax (originally aimed at millionaires). It goes on and on. Some conservative Republicans dug their heels in on the House bailout bill - which was, gulp, relatively clean compared with this. Now a 100-page bill has become a 450-page monstrosity tarted up with special favors for this one and that one. Did they just walk through Senate offices scooping up old bills and throwing them into the word processor? Some of these provisions may be perfectly good ideas. But isn’t the Senate supposed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body? Isn’t it supposed to hold hearings and debate these things instead of bundling them all up in a ‘must pass’ emergency bill?” - Mona Charen
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