Rightwords... Prudent Conservatism

One man, one government employee?

After reading “Outrage” by Dick Morris, one can surmise that fully a fifth of the national budget can be chalked up to fraud, graft, quasi-legal junketing, subsidies unnecessarily paid out to favorite big farmers, drug companies, the UN, Fannie Mae, for Illegal immigrants, and trade protection, among other extravaganzas.

If one increases the size of government, one could expect a similar increase in these practices, or even a further penetration and corruption of the political scene, not unlike the so-called stimulus pork project. A billion here, and a billion there, and you soon have a fully corrupted process.

Before letting government grow to its theoretical service-to-the-people limit, why not insist on cleaning up the fraud and corruption first, and the waste, mismanagement, and deadhead personnel that bloats payrolls and budgets throughout the Departments, Agencies, etc?

The concept that there just might eventually be one government employee for each civilian so as to cater to the citizen’s every wish is perhaps one theoretical limit to be avoided. Once over 50% of the population garners their wages from the US government, we are well on the way to restrictive socialism and who knows what excesses? This would put freedom and liberty for our citizens in great jeopardy.

Let us first concentrate on greater honesty and efficiency of government, legislators, lobbyists, and industry before allowing insatiable growth of government to satisfy every whim of the “Need and Right” groups.

Go to the LSU website to see just how many identifiable federal government organizations actually exist, have a staff, and budget. At last report it was 1,177 boards, committees, agencies, commissions, bureaus and the like. Many of these organizations have overlapping charters, separate rules and and a thirst for participation in the business of the day to justify their existence. We have become Russia, governed by 10,000 (or a lot more) clerks, not the leaders.

http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/index.html

It is all well and good to deep six the idea of smaller government, but we must have our government honest, minimally invasive of our freedoms and liberties, efficient, and cost-effective.

You don’t get there by opening the door to growth without reform.

Labels: Conservatism, Government, Government Handouts, Honesty, Stimulus

# posted by Mannning @ 11:00 AM