Writing Our Representatives

I firmly believe in writing our representatives to tell them where we stand on the current (and for that matter any bill). The following is a letter I wrote to one of my Senators.

Mrs. Hagan,

I wanted to write you regarding the stimulus bill being passed and discussed there in Washington. While I can agree that something needs to be done, I am opposed to the current bill. Every dollar the government spends is a dollar taken away from the private sector. For that reason every dollar spent by the government should be very carefully considered. While I don't agree with Keynesian economic theory (government spending is the way out of economic recessions), I am not naive enough to think that there is any one solution to this current economic problem and that I know what it is. If major government spending is needed (though I have read several economists theories' stating differently; see http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/), then every dollar spent should be accounted for and should generate more than a dollar's worth of actual stimulus (since leaving that money with the private sector would generate at least dollar for dollar). I want to see that level of accountability for this money. It seems that with the more money involved in the bill, the less concerned everyone is with larger amounts of money (ie, billions in spending seems to make the legislature ignore, or think less important, the "smaller" millions).

Personally I am a firm believer in allowing each individual American the freedom to do with their money what they would. Government exists only to protect those freedoms. That includes protecting our freedom to experience the consequences of our own decisions. If we make poor choices then we should suffer the consequences of those choices. I fully realize that sometimes those choices affect others who had no part of that decision making process (my home has dropped in value too even though I have been paying my mortgage faithfully). It is impossible for government to prevent or fix that, it is a part of life. Also If we make good choices and experience success, we shouldn't be looked down on because we were more successful than others. Saying that the middle class needs to be expanded and that those who have more money than the middle class should have to pay more in taxes is rediculous. I am in the lower middle of the middle class and I plan on moving out of the middle class as defined and move into the upper class. I don't want to push to reach that goal only to be taxed so much that it puts me effectively back into the middle class. To me, that is limiting my freedom.

Please do not support this bill. If it does get signed into law, then please be a leader in demonstrating accountability in the legislature and push for strict reporting. As a taxpayer I want to know, down to my level of budgeting every dollar, how the money is spent and its demonstrated effect. Government has already spent $3-400 Billion on this crisis with no demonstrated dollar for dollar results. Please don't let another trillion plus (this bill and the rest of TARP funds) be spent with the same lack of accountability.

Matt Hicken

Government Stimulus

While most who know me know my stance on whether or not the government should spend more of our money on bailing out banks and companies who made poor decisions (and if you didn't then that sentence should have helped clear things up); I thought I would share just a couple of thoughts.

1- Every dollar our government spends is a dollar taken away from the private sector. If they are spending it then they are, in effect, saying that they feel they will do a better job with that money than individuals would. I don't agree with that line of thought. While there are plenty of examples that have come to light recently of how the private sector has squandered their finances, I believe we would do a bette job of spending our money than our government would. I also believe that with the responsibility of spending our own money we should suffer the consequences of poor decisions and feel the thrill of good decisions.

2- I think that the "debate" on whether or not the stimulus is necessary has been embarrassingly non-existent. Republicans have been railroaded in their arguments. Obama's statement that he is working in a bi-partisan fashion just means he is telling those who disagree with him that he heard them but if they love the American people they would vote for what he wants. This is not what our elected officials should be doing. They should be spending less time trying to control the nation and more time trying to manage it as the representative they are.

3- To quote George Washington: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." Why on earth do we want to make it bigger? And why do some think that the government is responsible for solving problems when they, in many cases, are the problem?

Finally, regardless of how poorly I think our government is currently operating, I agree 100% with Adam Smith who stated in the Wealth of Nations:

"The uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things toward improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigor to the constitution, in spite, not only of the disease, but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor."

In other words, we will get out of this regardless of what our apparently ignorant government decides to do. We just most likely will be back in trouble in a few years given their current plans. My hope is that by then we as a people have woken up to the ills of having such a large government and we will vote in representatives who will put the responsibility back onto us.