Issue No. 1

We may perceive a general distrust of spending, but the base ideology is fear of the inevitable abuse that comes from the creeping expansion of government powers and thus intrusion. This phenomenon has been known for centuries, but is easily forgotten.

“The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse.” — British statesman Edmund Burke, 1729 – 1797

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents… If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one… The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. … There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” — American Statesman James Madison, 1751 — 1836

“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. … Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve. But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn’t belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another… Then abolish that law without delay; No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic.” – French philosopher Claude Frederic Bastiat, 1801 – 1850

But will people accept lower spending if it’s THEIR pet project that gets cut? The same people who say we spend too much on defense will fight like crazy to keep a military project in their own state or district. Everyone wants someone else’s project to be cut. Nothing that benefits THEM is wasteful. It’s not only pressure that’s needed. The people have to SUPPORT the elimination of programs and the wholesale cutting of the federal budget. The people have gotten what they voted for since 1932: government in a never-​ending growth cycle. Even when taxes were cut, as in the 1980s, spending continued to rise. Revenues streamed into Washington and were immediately used up. Those who tried to cut spending were denounced as “cruel” and accused of “trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor”, and most were defeated in subsequent elections. Courage was not rewarded. We voters can’t have it both ways.