For your reading pleasure -- Notes from Zarahemla Political Forum

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Date Posted: 16:45:12 10/09/05 Sun
Author: Chuck in ND
Subject: For your reading pleasure

Dh's latest article:
http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=105131§ion=columnists&columnist=Ross%20Nelson

Brazile sells out for bags of gold, pork

Bravo for Donna Brazile. Her column in the Oct. 3 Forum stated that she campaigned hard against President Bush in 2000 and 2004. But all he had to do was wave the taxpayers� dollar in front of her, promise to pave the streets of New Orleans with a mixture of pork and gold, and all of a sudden he was the man. Her principles didn�t stand a chance against Mammon.

Bush, she proclaims of his speech on rebuilding the Gulf Coast, spoke from the heart. Actually, he spoke from your pocketbook and mine. It seems most Americans think it is not only the federal government�s job to step in as it has everywhere else while dispersing tax monies, but it�s also a way to show compassion. Nonsense, piffle, poppycock.

Here�s the truth, if the gentle reader can bear it: giving away other people�s money is not compassion. It never was, nor ever will be. Taxes are taken by coercion. If you don�t believe that, don�t pay your taxes for a while and find out. They are to be used as sparingly as possible and for legitimate government functions, not as �income transfers� from Peter to Paul.

Bush finds himself in plentiful company, however. As a closet liberal spender he ranks right up there with Lyndon Johnson, and he�s bolstered by former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo�s assertion that giving away other people�s money is the Christian thing to do. How does that Bible verse go? Oh yes, �blessed are those who are forced to give to others, for this coercion shall be counted unto them as compassion.�

We should be proud of Fargo city commissioners Linda Coates and Michael Williams� stand against Mayor Bruce Furness� proposal to send $10,000 in city taxes to New Orleans. Charity is a private and voluntary matter. Taxes, which are gathered under the (usually) unspoken but quite clear threat of force, are in no way charitable or compassionate.

Ross Nelson Column Archive
Nation embraces the deceit 09/25
Goodbye to a gooey, wet summer 09/11
Ross Nelson Complete Archive
A recent Forum column by Kay Syvrud detailed other natural catastrophes that have hit the United States. In most of those disasters government help was nonexistent or minimal, yet in every case recovery was rapid. One reason is because Americans are in fact generous � generous in a truly charitable way. Behold the hundreds of millions of private dollars already donated to help New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas stricken by hurricanes. This, even though the donors know that their taxes (or their children�s taxes if the money is borrowed) will also be funneled to the disaster areas.

The astute reader may have noticed that I�m not recommending we turn our backs on the afflicted. I am distinguishing between inappropriate government aid funded by taxes and compassionate giving, which is done freely and cheerfully. If the federal government was Constitution-sized, and thus our taxes mostly eliminated, we could find ourselves capable of private funding for disasters on a vast scale.

Since disasters are paid with tax money already, an easy transition from government handouts to private aid could be made by, say, a dollar-for-dollar transfer in income tax up to a certain percentage of the tax owed. For true compassion perhaps an additional checkoff on the income tax form could be added. As this private fund grew the federal government could gradually shift its disaster functions to capable private groups. Not only would the government be getting out of an area it has no authority to be in the first place, disaster relief would almost certainly be faster and more effective than the usual government bungling.

And we wouldn�t have to toady up to the feds to get our money back, as Brazile has.

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Replies:

Once again . . . -- Bembix, 04:55:44 10/11/05 Tue
well said. -- KathyT, 14:58:02 10/11/05 Tue