Are we a little confused?

Of course no one reading this (I like to pretend that people besides my wife read my blog) is unfamiliar with our current crisis. What I find absolutely sickening is the complete confusion going on in our nation's capital. I have recently skimmed through the budget proposal (its 146 pages long) and quite frankly I am rather scared about our nations future and there are a number of reasons why.

1- The Obama plans of late have pushed for big spending and even bigger government. While outwardly they have advertised these plans as a way to help the poor and middle class, they will in fact hurt them. The government is making clear that they want to be the ones distributing wealth by taking it from not only the wealthy, but from businesses. They are increasing the taxes and fees on all larger corporations under the guise of needing that money to foot the environmental bill and to help the poor with their health care. I'll post my health care concerns in a future blog. There is a fundamental principle that the government seems to have forgotten (though ironically hasn't quit pursuing itself) and that is that everyone wants to get ahead. The smarter ones are able to do it because they focus on profit. If that profit is cut into because of greater taxes then does our government honestly think they won't pass those costs on? They will have to pass those costs on by either cutting costs (cutting employees and spending is a great way to do that) or by increasing prices. Does the government think it can make up for those losses through spending of its own? I honestly don't think they have thought that through.

2- The last time the government tried to add a windfall tax on oil companies (yeah, you guessed it, Obama has it in his budget) it was during Carter's administration. How did that work out for them? Others could probably point to more of the problems than I can, but at the very least we can see that government's revenues on that tax went effectively to zero before it was finally ended so it didn't even meet its purpose. Which administration is consistently ranked among the worst in history again? Why on earth would we want to follow the same path?

3- While I totally agree that something must be done about our schools and our health care system, spending was not the right answer. Now before any teachers (again I'm pretending someone reads this besides me and my wife) get upset at me here, let me explain. I know that our schools do not have the materials that they need. I know that they are way underfunded. I bet, however, if you really stopped to evaluate all of the problems you see with meeting your job's objective - I believe that objective is to give the students the education they need to succeed - then you would probably rank materials lower on the list. I would be willing to bet we could put one word down that would cover most of the top problems: Responsibility. Parents have at increasing rates removed themselves of the responsibility we have to teach and guide our children. If parents took that responsibility seriously then I bet a significant portion of the problems would be removed. Now, what about the responsibility of the students to commit themselves to learning and to really be involved in what their life is going to look like based on what they do in school? Wouldn't it be great if they didn't blame all of their failures on anything but themselves?

How is increased government spending and increased government handouts to the poor going to fix that? Honestly, how is getting better computers in a classroom courtesy of the government going to increase responsibility? I realize that if a school is fixed up and gets new things a certain pride comes in that might get people involved, but I have seen what happens to a community when it comes together without its government and spent their own time and money to clean up and re-paint their local school. As a missionary in Ecuador I helped them repaint and I was proud too. I'd be willing to bet that those students who participated in that school project with their parents did a lot better than those schools who waiting on the government to send someone in to fix their school.

4- I totally understand that free markets come with a lot of risk and a lot of people want to avoid that risk. Trust and Responsibility have to actually exist in a free market system. Whenever there is a failing of either of these in a free market system really bad things can happen and people will get hurt. Is the solution to that problem to give all of the responsibility to one entitiy? That question is quickly answered by looking at the results of that poor thought throughout history.

Everything in life has risk and reward. You can't have one without the other. You also can't have no responsibilities but get all of the reward. That is not just unlikely, it is impossible. If our nation is to improve then we must realize that reward will only come through trial and error (yes that's right, error), hard work and innovation.

As an aside, it would be nice if we could put a warning label on this budget stating: Warning! Prolonged exposure to government run programs will take away not only your ability but your will to improve your position. Side affects might include: a feeling that any problem you have could and should be solved by someone else, sudden loss of self-esteem, a bleeding economy, and unexplainable headaches after listening to political speeches.