You Must Be Rich
“If you’re young and conservative, you have no heart. If you’re old and liberal, you have no brain,” a favorite Churchill quote and spot-on description of me.
For me the money I earn is a super-efficient warehouse where I can store my future needs, food, clothes, shelters, etc. And the taking of it (taxes) a levy I willingly pay for the items I need but cannot afford on my own: roads, schools, protection from fire, crime, war, and yes, even my desire to assist those amongst us in trouble who cannot take care of themselves.
But why should you be forced to give what you earn to those choosing not to earn or those taking and not repaying? Those that demonstrate no sense of responsibility or value you. There are all kinds of bailouts, some given before they’re needed or requested. You experience and pay for bailouts of banks, insurance companies, the health care industry, military contractors, right on down to students, the poor and even a member of my own family.
Expectations of paying back, performing better or even a thanks are not required but should be. Requiring those we give to, to participate in the giving or to pay back as their conditions advance does not sell well, as you have seen with all that “Too Big to Fail” nonsense, but it also applies to some you may not have thought of. I remember one of my old bosses, Sen. Daniel Moynihan of New York saying that millions would be plunged into poverty, and we would “find children sleeping on grates,” back in 1993 if we changed welfare programs that simply gave away cash into less generous, time-limited, work-required programs. It is hard to argue that that switch had nothing to do with child poverty and family welfare rolls being cut in half.
Politicians — Democrats and Republicans — all like bailouts for their friends or those they hope will become friends, blue collar or white. It is just easy to spend other people’s money and amongst politicians your money is just other people’s money.
Richard Kimball, Vote Smart Founder
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