Stop federal aid to state and local governments

The theory behind federal aid to local governments is that the federal government can operate programs in the national interest to efficiently solve local problems. Now that whole concept is laughable on the face of it. I’m not sure how any politician can even say that sentence with a straight face!

When has the federal government ever operated more “efficiently” than anything with which it might be sensibly compared?

No. No! I don’t think this theory holds water on the “efficiency” factor.

But let’s take a look at this other matter of “programs in the national interest.”

Let’s be serious here!

Outside of those few matters for which the people should truly look to the federal government—such as our national defense—politicians do almost nothing in Washington, DC, “in the national interest.” In fact, a great deal of the time and money spent by the staff of Congressmen and Senators is not, in fact, spent on “the national interest.”

Instead, they spend a huge portion of their time and energy on “the local interest,” for which the reader might instead read: “Securing ‘pork’ for their local constituents in every effort to leverage the taxpayers’ money to buy votes from the very taxpayers they have pick-pocketed.

Federal aid to states and localities is nothing short of politicians hoodwinking the taxpaying public into believing that by giving some of the money they have confiscated from the taxpayers back through “aid,” that they have somehow done the citizens a great favor.

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See also National Suicide – How Washington is Destroying the American Dream from A to Z.

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Of course, this doesn’t even cover the fact that huge amounts of federal control and incentives to overspend accompany money from Washington, D.C.

The punishing Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)

If Washington politicians don't act, and it is not likely that they will, the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) could cost U.S. taxpayers earning just $50,000 in adjusted gross income as much as $10,000,000,000,000 ($10 trillion). That’s $10 trillion taken out of the private economy and subject to more government waste.

In 1997, the AMT punished 618,000 taxpayers. By 2006, it penalized 3.5 million American taxpayers. By 2007, some 17 million U.S. taxpayers would have had to pay the unfair tax had not Congress passed a temporary patch.

But why was the “patch” temporary? The AMT ought to be eliminated completely! Both Democrat and Republican controlled Congresses have had opportunity to do away with the AMT and neither have done so.

Why?

Because the politicians are as addicted to tax dollars to support their profligate spending as a heroin addict is addicted to the needle!

Stop the madness!

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See National Suicide by Martin L. Gross

We cannot continue any longer our wasteful ways... at the expense of our children

"We can, with compassion, continue to meet our responsibility to those who, through no fault of their own, need our help. We can meet fully the other legitimate responsibilities of government. We cannot continue any longer our wasteful ways at the expense of the workers of this land or of our children." -- Ronald Reagan (1981)

Many of us are unhappy...

"Many of us are unhappy about our worsening economic problems, about the constant crisis atmosphere…, about our diminishing prestige…, about the weakness in our economy…, about our lack of strong, straightforward leadership. And many Americans today, just as they did 200 years ago, feel burdened, stifled and sometimes even oppressed by government that has grown too large, too bureaucratic, too wasteful, too unresponsive, too uncaring about people and their problems.

"Americans, who have always known that excessive bureaucracy is the enemy of excellence and compassion, want a change in public life - a change that makes government work for people. They seek a vision of a better America, a vision of society that frees the energies and ingenuity of our people while it extends compassion to the lonely, the desperate, and the forgotten.

"I believe we can embark on a new age of reform in this country and an era of national renewal - an era that will reorder the relationship between citizen and government, that will make government again responsive to the people, that will revitalize the values of family, work, and neighborhood and that will restore our private and independent social institutions. These institutions always have served as both a buffer and bridge between the individual and the state - and these institutions, not government, are the real sources of our economic and social progress as a people.

"That's why I've said… that we must control and limit the growth of federal spending, that we must reduce tax rates to stimulate work and savings and investment. That's why I've said we can relieve labor and business of burdensome, unnecessary regulations and still maintain high standards of environmental and occupational safety. That's why I've said we can reduce the cost of government by eliminating billions lost to waste and fraud in the federal bureaucracy…. And, because we are a Federation of sovereign states, we can restore the health and vitality of state and local governments by returning to them control over programs best run at those levels of government closer to the people. We can fight corruption while we work to bring into our government women and men of competence and integrity." -- Ronald Reagan (1980)