Tuesday, April 24, 2012

When To Pull Up Stakes



            Pulling up stakes can mean it’s time to move or it’s time to change what you are doing.  At one time in the history of the United States if you loved being an American but were unhappy with the political environment you were in you could pull up stakes and move to another City, County or even a different State and that environment would change.  If you were unhappy with the political environment of the United States as a whole there was a time you could pull up stakes and move to a different country, at one point in history you could even find some undiscovered or uninhabited land and start a new country, not anymore.  In fact in both of the previous cases there is no where else to go.

            The political environment of the United States today is such that no matter what City, County or State you go to you are still there.  You are still in the same political environment.  In the brief life span this Nation has enjoyed we have gone from being 13 Colonies under British rule to 13 sovereign States with their own Constitutions uniting together for the purpose of defense to 50 States that have given away their sovereignty to a central Government that is usurping more power and control daily.  There is no where to go within the United States to change you political environment.  Sure there are States that are making noise about regaining their sovereignty, some have even passed a law or two to nullify some of the more freedom damaging laws the Federal Government has passed.  None so far have come right out and reclaimed their sovereignty.  The political environment in the world is just as bad or even worse in many cases.  With all the problems we do have in the United States it is still one of the freest places in the world to live, it’s just not as free as it should be or as many believe it to be.
           
Due to the current political environment across our Nation I now have to wonder how long it will be before people start to pull up stakes in the sense of changing what they are doing.  Exactly what you can do when you pull up stakes will depend on your financial status and whether or not you are an employer, employee or self employed.  The reason I mentioned financial status first is because this is the area that could have the largest effect on the Nation as a whole.  With our ever growing National debt and our Governments resistance to balance the budget the talk seems to always go to increasing the taxes on the “rich”.  The “rich” are those that, according to the White House, make more then $250,000 a year and do not pay their fair share of taxes.  These are the scum that find all the loopholes in the tax code that allow them to pay a lower percentage of their income than their secretaries.  These are the bloodsuckers that only earned their fortunes on the backs of those less fortunate than them.  These are the people that should feel blessed to pay more, they should feel fortunate to be able to give more of their blood money so that it may be given to those unfortunates that they stood on to earn it, those unfortunates deserve it.  Well, at least those are the things that those with socialist ideals will tell you to justify the taxing of the “rich”.  What they won’t tell you is that the loopholes they speak of are the ones that they wrote into the tax code to help themselves and their “rich” friends.  They won’t tell you exactly what percentage of what appears to be income of these “rich” individuals is put back into what ever business they started in order to keep the business going, grow the business and hire more employees.  They also will not tell you that much of the income of the “rich” comes from investments, investments that are available to anyone that is willing to either do a little research or to find someone they can trust to do the investing for them.  They also will not tell you that any tax increase on the “rich” will more then likely be passed on to either the employees or to the consumer, they are businessmen, they did not get the title of being “rich” by giving away their product or service.  They also will not tell you that without the “rich” many, if not all, of the products and services we now enjoy will not be there, they are the ones that took the chance, invested their money and applied their mind to provide these products and services for us.  Sure they benefit from their profits but we benefit from them, just look at your cell phone and try to create one from scratch.  The last thing they won’t tell you, in fact they will not even think of this themselves since they would not want to admit it, is that many of those that are benefiting from the “social” programs provided for by the Federal Government and funded by the taxpaying portion of the population contribute nothing to the welfare of the Nation.  They do not provide a service or create a product and they are not gainfully employed, if they were they would not need the “social” programs.  So exactly who is obtaining their income on the backs of others, the “rich” that have earned it or the “social” program recipients?

            With those thoughts now floating around in your head start thinking about the consequences of the “rich” deciding they have had enough.  Start thinking about the employers and employees that may not be rich but they are tired of working 40 hour plus work weeks and in many cases more then one job while others are benefiting from their labor more then they are.  Our Government is giving the impression that they will take care of you, don’t worry, quit your job and we will take care of you.  This is a great plan until the local business owner goes to his factory and finds he has no employees left, they have all gone on the Government dole.  Now the local business owner goes belly up, no problem, that’s just one more factory that was belching pollution into the air out of business, just one more of those filthy “rich” that has gone down with the ship.  Oh yea, one more deserted building that will be a blight on the landscape.  We still have all those other “rich” that have earned their money from investments to fall back on.  We will have them only as long as they let us.  How long would it take before they figured out they could be a whole lot happier if they were to turn all their investments into a yacht filled with precious metals that could not be touched by the Government?  How long would it be before they just liquidated their assets and disappeared in the fog they would leave behind?  If this was to happen there would be no assets for the Government to redistribute, there would be no “social” money being paid out, and there would be a very large portion of our population that would have no idea of how to survive without the Government telling them exactly what to do.  Of course there will always be those that refuse to quit, refuse to believe anything is happening or refuse to accept Government assistance.

            Unfortunately it seems that the Federal Government does not believe the cash cow will ever dry up.  They are giving lip service to making changes that will reduce our debt while in the same session they are passing another budget with a huge deficit or passing laws that will create more deficit spending.  Anytime you see the word deficit you can negate any thing that has been said about reducing the debt, at best the only reduction to the debt is a possible reduction to the speed at which the debt continues to grow.  There are different plans floating around Congress and being touted by groups such as the Tea Party, but for any of them to work there has to be a majority of the Nation on board with them.   Just as a thought let me give you a 4 step plan;

1- All States reclaim their sovereignty.
2- Abolish the tax code completely.
3- The States will determine what type of revenue generating system they want for their State.
4- The States will pay an equally apportioned amount to the Federal Government to provide for the common defense of the Nation and for the necessary functions of the Federal Government required to negotiate trade agreements with Foreign Nations.  The Federal Government will also retain the role of arbiter between the States.

Here are some of the benefits of this type of plan:

1- The citizens will have increased control over the taxation of their hard earned income.
2- Increased control over the States spending.
3- Prevent the taxes from someone in FL from being spent on a bike path in NC.
4- States will retain the means to control Federal spending by either approving or withholding funds.

A plan of this nature puts the Constitution back in the drivers’ seat at the Federal level and States Constitutions back in control at the State level.  It allows the States to have their own personalities, it allows the State and its citizens to determine what is best for them, and it does not allow an individual State to dictate how the entire Nation will act.  This plan could, and should, apply to all functions the Federal Government has taken that are not authorized by the Constitution.  Does this plan have problems, sure it does, one I’m not an economist or accountant which means I am probably looking at this in a very simplistic way, which may be the way it should be looked at.  Secondly, it will end a lot of Government “social” programs.  Social programs are considered sacred to many Politicians, not so much because they actually believe in them but more because they are a source of voters, power and money for them.  If they really believed in what they were touting they would be out in the streets handing out box lunches and working in soup kitchens, not flying around on Government expense accounts and going to expensive campaign dinners.  It would be a major task to get the support necessary for a plan such as this, but it’s a plan.

            Lastly we need to think about where this is headed.  For over 100 years now the Government has been usurping power and in truth turning every tax paying citizen into a tax slave.  They have done this with little resistance, they have done it gradually so that we don’t remember how it used to be; we believe it has always been this way.  We are going to allow them to continue this gradual change until we find ourselves all employed by the Government after they Nationalize all industries, just look what they are trying to do to the health industry and the oil companies now, look at what they tried to do with cap and trade and what they did to the auto industry a few years ago.  Nationalization is the only way they will be able to ensure they have the income necessary to grow the Government and grow the programs they are trying to put into place.

Steve Avery
4/24/12

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