In most countries the governments are much more in control than in the United States, in other words they try to control the lives of their citizens. Now to say that they are in control is not generally the case because so many of the world’s governments are out of control, rather they attempt to take complete control as best they can. In the US, we had hoped for a weak federal government, stronger state governments, and local control where communities could decide what was in their best interests. For some reason we have evolved beyond that, and now folks are upset, take the tea party for instance.
Now many folks will lambaste the tea party for various reasons, but indeed they are correct in their assertions, and demands for a smaller more fiscally conservative government. One of the problems we have is that as we move towards socialism people have determined that they can vote for free stuff and have other people’s taxes pay for it, and then they vote to have their taxes not go up. Then the smallest minority of folks, the wealthy folks, are made to pay for it all.
That’s rather convenient, but it isn’t fair; why should wealthy folks have to pay a higher percentage of taxes on their income than poor-folks especially when it is the poor folks who use of those services of government? The reality is it’s not fair, it isn’t American, and it’s absolutely nothing compared to what our founding fathers had determined when they wrote our Constitution. And yes that was a long time ago, but the philosophical principles are still sound today, we owe government, the government does not own us, and the government has no right to tell us how to live our lives, as long as we aren’t hurting anyone else.
Likewise, the citizenry shouldn’t wholly rely on the government, but rather be responsible for their own device. Now there are many who don’t think like this, and would prefer a socialist type government, but since socialism has never worked in the history of mankind, that’s a real problem. Either we aren’t teaching economics and history properly, or we are not taking responsibility for ourselves and family – I’ve come to believe is some of both.
One could say it is the fault of our school system, but that really wouldn’t be fair either. Indeed it is interesting that we tax citizens to pay for schooling, and then the schools indoctrinate our kids into socialist views, which then requires more tax dollars, and more payments to the government, when the government is inefficient at almost everything it does.
In fact, the government spends 45% in administration of all that is due, in other words. even the IRS spends 45% of the money it collects in the administration of the agency that collects it. You can expect that health care will be no different; or any other government agency for that matter. It’s not necessarily good or bad, it just is, that’s the way it works and not just in our nation either.
A good book I would recommend that you read is by Ludwig van Misses; “Bureaucracy” – and in this book he explains why we need the bureaucracy for some things, and why it makes sense. But even as Milton Friedman would explain the government should be limited and should not interfere with the lives of the citizens and we should not have taxation without representation, nor should our right to free contract be dismissed by the government.
Freedom and liberty are fundamental principles of our nation, and for some reason our government thinks that they know how to spend our money better than we do, and they know how we should live our lives better than how we wish to live our lives. And therein lies the problem, until that is fixed America can never be great again. Please consider all this.