“Government is the great fiction, through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” — Frederic Bastiat.

As I am, the great classic liberal economist and philosopher Bastiat was an advocate of limited government.
In “The Law” http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html) Bastiat advises that the only morally legitimate role of government is to provide for our mutual self defense; that is, to protect our individual rights to life, liberty and property from the wrongful actions of others. By this reckoning, to go beyond these essentials is to violate one or more of those rights, and set up a country for social, political and/or economic decline. For example, to tax one person to fund another violates property rights, and is merely legalized theft.

Among the “everyones” that Bastiat could be talking about today are our elected officials. Federal politicians use your money to buy votes, often in the form of grants to state and local governments. And of course, the lower level officials like to get that money as evidence that they can effectively pluck the system, that is, the taxpayers. When I point out that:

n Money taken from state or federal taxpayers for the benefit of local government is, in effect, stolen.

n Given the unbalanced budgets and heavy borrowing of federal, state, and even local governments, the money we receive is borrowed.

n Often the proposed spending makes no sense economically; I am invariably told “If we do not use that money, someone else will.”

If I say take the money, but lobby to end this folly, silence usually prevails. So all incentives make the situation worse, as “everyone” tries to outdo “everybody.” It apparently does not occur to many people that if we all paid less in state and federal taxes, we could either individually better take care of our own needs, or that we would have more resources locally to meet local needs.

So what are the true costs of what Texas congressman and current presidential candidate Ron Paul calls “the Welfare/Warfare State?”

Our nation’s comptroller general (accountant) tells us that the real U.S. debt based on the same accounting principles that the government requires of corporations is about $48 trillion, or more than $156,000 per man, woman, and child.

Currently, the cost of government, that is, direct and indirect taxes, plus the cost of administration and regulatory compliance, exceeds 50 percent of our economy. Taxes in excess of 75 percent of income will one day be required to fulfill our unfunded liabilities for existing programs, such as Medicare, Social Security, and federal pensions.

Even so, politicians at all levels are pushing new or expanded government programs. As the costs of debt must be paid by future taxpayers, we are not only stealing from our children, but also selling them into tax slavery. Yet when I ask advocates of big government how much is enough, I never get a straight answer.

Ken Van Doren is a building contractor and Mauston City Council Member. He is one of 12 Tribune Community Columnists, whose writing appears on the Sunday Opinion pages.

.

More Opinion Stories: State budget deficit will require cuts and tax hikes MY TAKE: The Bright side of a slow economy We can all do our part to help area food banks Guest view: A former hunter returns to woods for his children Q & A: Anne Steuer: Five questions for Children’s Museum director It’s time for sacrifice, to pay our bills Waste tossed in La Crosse should stay in La Crosse Investors have gotten interested in stem cells Civil rights and justice still sought in Mississippi Ambulance opposition shows leadership gap

Advertisement