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| Government Corruption |
| The Government Is Not Your Friend, No Matter What Politicians Tell You |
| 2021-10-01 |
| [American Thinker] Reagan once said: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." He was right, the government’s not your friend and it most certainly isn’t here to help you. The dirty little secret about government is that its purpose is not really to make the lives of citizens better but, rather, to accumulate power at the expense of citizens. Not sure about that? Ask yourself, how many government agencies have put themselves out of a job because they succeeded? There’re a few that technology left behind, like the Steamboat Inspection Service; others that served their purpose, like the Defense Homes Corporation; while others were merged into other agencies like the General Land Office, subsumed into the Department of Interior. In our history, there have been fewer than 100 federal agencies that have actually been shuttered, and most of those existed in the early 20th century to deal with the Depression or the two world wars. According to the Federal Register, the federal government has 457 different agencies. That’s 457 agencies covering virtually every aspect of American’s lives, most of which are staffed by unelected bureaucrats, all of whom spend your money and many of whom write regulations that carry the force of law which the government’s police power enforces. This includes everything from the State Department to the Geographic Names Board to the International Broadcasting Board to the ATF. And that 457 is misleading. While it includes a dozen organizations tied to Defense, there are dozens more agencies that come under it that are not listed in the Federal Register such as the DoD Education Activity or the Office of Naval Research. Wikipedia lists a more realistic, but still lacking, 1,500. The American government has become a leviathan. It’s everywhere, involved in virtually every aspect of American’s lives, and it’s perpetual, regardless of its record of dismal failure. Two examples: 1) The War on Poverty, AKA the Great Society. The brainchild of LBJ, the Great Society programs were created to address poverty in America. They included things like food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, Head Start, and others. In 1964, when the Great Society programs were passed, the poverty rate was 15%, dropping to 13.9% the next year. By 1969 the rate was 9.7%. Exactly 50 years later, in 2019, the rate was 8.7%. That means that as a result of fighting the War on Poverty for half a century, after spending over $30 trillion, the poverty rate dropped by a rounding error—by literally 1%! Yet somehow the War on Poverty goes on, with more programs, more money, more regulations and, of course, more employees. Indeed, DHHS, which manages many of the programs, has a staff of 80,000 and an annual budget of over $1 trillion. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #5 The government avoided another shutdown. Bummer... |
| Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 2021-10-01 14:16 |
| #4 The power to regulate is the power to control! |
| Posted by: Boss Sailor 2021-10-01 14:04 |
| #3 I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." He was right, the government’s not your friend and it most certainly isn’t here to help you. Reagan was hated by the left. Many in his own party didn't like or support him. The bureaucracy didn't like him. The people seemed to love him. History does seem to repeat itself. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2021-10-01 12:39 |
| #2 At one point, the promise was "a chicken in every pot". Now it's "We're going to put all of you in the same pot." |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2021-10-01 10:08 |
| #1 I suspect the figures for the 'War on Poverty' are very optimistic. |
| Posted by: Cesare 2021-10-01 09:20 |