"Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants, at such a distance, and from under the eye of their constituents, must, from the circumstance of distance, be unable to administer and overlook all the details necessary for the good government of the citizens; and the same circumstance, by rendering detection impossible to their constituents, will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste."
Thomas Jefferson.
And there were only 13 states then.
4 comments:
Amen.
Carter from Texas
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Corruption, plunder, and waste we have. However, the fifty states operate fairly comfortably in allowing the Federal Government to manage international affairs and monetary policy. Where we are at swords points is on domestic policy issues. There the diversity of our citizens views on priorities and on how much government we want is split. Each special interest group thinks the Federal Government should stop spending money on all projects except the ones important to them personally thus ensuring an almost 50/50 split in elections and gridlock on domestic policy issues. The old want Social Security and Medicare, the young want more spent on schools, and nobody wants to pay for anything.
Today the White House and the Republican leadership essentially agreed to keep all the tax cuts and extend unemployment benefits - digging a deeper deficit hole that will eventually have to be filled. In the meantime we all sell our souls to China by buying from WalMart because it is cheap.
Rome is definitely burning and we are definitely fiddling. v
Precisely. That's why the US has city governments, state governments and federal governments. Is there a single government in the UK?
Nah, I don't agree with the sentiments. Modern news-gathering operations such as newspapers and electronic media is on hand to acknowledge waste. And everyone has enemies; they will not hesitate to blow the whistle on those they don't like.
It's getting the government to do something about it.
Anonymous 1 complains about maintaining taxes at a moderately high level (i.e. the Bush tax cuts). He/she seems to think the way to deficit reduction is to increase taxes.
Doesn't he/she realize that tax money is like drugs to the politician? No matter how much they take, they will spend every penny of it, and want more.
The beauty of limiting taxes is that the politicians cannot spend more than they take in (well, in a logical society that would be the case).
At least keeping taxes under check is a restraint on free-spending liberals.
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