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We are coming into a New Year with a lot of excitement regarding a change of governing philosophy from one of grotesque and profligate federal spending to one of rational cost cutting headed by the “DOGE Brothers.”We are coming into a New Year with a lot of excitement of feeling regarding a change of governing philosophy, from one of grotesque and profligate federal spending to one of rational cost cutting headed by the “DOGE Brothers.” The hope is that the nation will find its way out of having a federal government that acts, as it has for our lifetimes, as an abyss of plunder, and becomes instead a guardian of our property and liberty, as it should always be.
What we have is a federal government in $36.1 Trillion of debt, which amounts to $272,000 of liability per every American household. Last year alone the government spent $6.75 Trillion, which equals handing every citizen in America $20,000. Can any of us afford that? If you were free to spend that money on your family or your house or your business, what would you do with that freedom?
But you can’t. The federal government alone decides how to spend that money for you… after they have taken it from you.
The DOGE brothers and the incoming President have already been asked by a strategic media that’s protective of government spending, what will not be cut. Answer: not Social Security, not healthcare, nothing that is known as government’s mandatory expenses.
In other words, the DOGE brothers are trying to empty the ocean with a spoon or trying to untie the Gordian Knot with a toothpick. It has been tried before, most notably by David Stockman’s “Grand Design” to reduce government spending by 5.4 % during Ronald Reagan’s first term. The effort failed because even Republicans who wanted to reduce government expenses voted against any spending cuts that effected their office, their state, or their constituents.
Let me explain how that happened.
<img alt captext="RawPixel.com” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/the-doge-brothers-meet-the-swamp.jpg” width=”450″>Since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, when the national government devised the income tax, the federal government has seized most of the wealth of this country and placed it in a single treasury, which with FDR’s expansion of the Administrative State, and LBJ’s Great Society legislation, became a redistributing dispensary for the Democrat Party to funnel money to its constituencies. And since the 17th Amendment took effect, providing that senators of states were popularly elected, senators no longer represented the independence of their “states,” just the people thereof, thus, all 50 states and their senators have become petitioners to the federal government to get back any of the money they can that’s been taken into the single treasury by the income tax.
The Democrat Party has taken advantage of this for a century, constructing an unrepresentative branch of government, their Administrative State that is in perpetual power. The Republican Party has been a minor partner in this arrangement, in order to protect whatever programs effect the redistributed income of their states. Therefore, when Senator Orrin Hatch, one of Reagan’s biggest supporters, was asked to support Stockman’s initiative to reduce the overall budget; he had to object, because the Job Corps program budget was one allocated to be cut.
You see, after sending every state’s wealth into a central, wastrel treasury, every senator and every representative has to spend money to grapple back any money they can for their constituents. That is the inversion of a representative system of government. One that promotes endless spending. As Rep. Massie, R-Ky has said: “Nobody’s ever lost an election for spending too much money up here.”
This century-long aberration of our government has become so customary to the average citizen that we love to hear what we are getting from the government, but never hear or understand that the government is spending “our” money, and that money is a measure of our freedom, to invest in our family, our home, our business. The money we earn is “our” property to which the government claims an “entitlement” which most citizens would object to, if they understood it.
So, I wish the DOGE brothers well in their quest in tackling the outmost trench of our federal behemoth — the “discretionary spending,” such as the $1.4 Trillion that Biden planned to spend through his executive actions, or the hundreds of billions Biden meant to unconstitutionally transfer from persons who took out student loans to taxpayers. Or some of the $400 Billion Democrats spent on climate change through the Inflation Reduction Act. Or the $490 Million being spent through the Department of Education on DEI coercive ideology programs and administrators. Or the millions allocated to the CDC for “vaccine equity” to distribute: 5,500 monkeypox vaccine doses to Black ‘LGBTQ+ men who have sex with men’ to “celebrate diversity and the impact of distinctly Black gay and queer culture on the community.”
And I hope the DOGE brothers follow up with the promise that “All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency.” They should do more: they should celebrate every single dollar saved as a dollar saved by every citizen, because that is what it is. And that may form a balance against all the crying the Democrat media is preparing to do for every dollar the government loses — of money that is “yours.”
Property, as in earned wealth, is more than just money, it is the freedom to invest in ourselves and our children, as we decide, as individuals and families.
Let the new era begin!
Richard C. Lyons, author of The DNA of Democracy: Volume I and Shadows of the Acropolis: Volume II and Passages Through The Shadows: Volume III of the DNA of Democracy Series, is a third-generation printer, whose early career centered on religious and special education publishing. Lyons has since engaged in literary pursuits as a poet, essayist, screenwriter, and indie publisher. richardclyons.com
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