Government Contracts for unnecessary military equipment, earmarks for needless projects, subsidies to super-wealthy farmers, federal and state legislations that provides American corporations and extremely- wealthy citizens with tax breaks and strategies for avoiding tax payments, lobbyists (mostly former congressmen and senators), who are now working for oil companies, insurance companies, and other special interest groups that pressure congress into passing laws that are not in the American citizen’s best interest. . .
The cumulative effect of this portion of big government has a triple impact on our national budget. First, it continues to coerce our government into spending a sizable amount of its money on wasteful, meaningless programs that only benefits corporate America. Second, it prevents our government from collecting its fair share of revenues (trillions of dollars) from American corporations and wealthy Americans. And finally, even though these areas of government are far more responsible for the national debt than entitlements, they are never talked about: Eradicating them might be the solution to “getting government spending under control;” yet, they aren’t part of the discussion.
This brings us to the most dangerous and most hidden portion of big government, which is the intrusion of the government into our lives: The United States Government continues to gain more freedom to bug our private communications, wire tap our homes, violate our Miranda rights, and to prevent our decision-making concerning our own bodies and our relationships with others.
In recent years, we’ve seen the United States Supreme Court reduce our voting clout, while giving corporations grater power to determine elections. We’ve also seen state governors, with the backing of state and federal laws, making it more difficult for us to seek justice (for example, file a law suit) for grievances committed by big businesses. By creating these obstacles, federal, state, and local governments (or big government) have become the allies of the environmental polluters, the uninspected food suppliers, the unsafe equipment manufacturers, and others whose greedy attitudes prevent them from following the procedures that promotes health and safety for the public—and curb cost escalation for medical and social services.
In the upcoming months, as the republicans and democrats debate the ways of reducing government spending, all these aspects of big government will be ignored. Instead, the discussion will be essentially about one thing and one thing only – ENTITLEMENTS or the money that is providing care and assistance to our most vulnerable citizens.
Shame on our big government!
