Post by shoreman on Aug 1, 2006 18:30:09 GMT -5
The Future of Freedom Foundation’s Daily Commentaries
fff.org/blog/index.asp
It must be campaign season. Following standard campaign custom in the United States (as well as Latin America), U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton is reaching out to rural voters in upstate New York with … you guessed it … free federal candy! She says that she wants to revitalize the agricultural sector by increasing federal subsidies.
Yawn!
Just more standard liberal (or conservative) vote-buying claptrap during election time. Of course, it’s not considered bribery in a legal sense because in the United States it’s legal for federal politicians, especially incumbents, to offer U.S. taxpayer subsidies during campaign season in the hopes of acquiring their votes in return.
Of course, Clinton didn’t talk about where the money for the free federal candy comes from. The New York audiences to which she speaks form the impression in their minds that the money will come from other people, just as the people in every other state, where the same thing happens, form the exact same impression.
The fact is that the free federal candy that Clinton is offering during her campaign for reelection comes from all U.S. taxpayers, compliments of the IRS. The loot is then put at the disposal of Congress, whose members then divvy it up among themselves. Then, each incumbent hits the road during reelection season proudly declaring, “I’m an effective congressman. I’m bringing you free federal candy. It won’t cost you a dime. Vote for me. Reelect me.”
Frederic Bastiat put it best: The government has become the great fiction by which everyone is trying to live at the expense of everything else — while doing his best to protect himself from the IRS — while remaining convinced that it’s all “free enterprise.”
How long will the American people continue to fall for this vote-buying scam? How long will they continue to let themselves be fleeced by federal politicians and bureaucrats who will stop at nothing to maintain their grip on their lives and pocketbooks?
fff.org/blog/index.asp
It must be campaign season. Following standard campaign custom in the United States (as well as Latin America), U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton is reaching out to rural voters in upstate New York with … you guessed it … free federal candy! She says that she wants to revitalize the agricultural sector by increasing federal subsidies.
Yawn!
Just more standard liberal (or conservative) vote-buying claptrap during election time. Of course, it’s not considered bribery in a legal sense because in the United States it’s legal for federal politicians, especially incumbents, to offer U.S. taxpayer subsidies during campaign season in the hopes of acquiring their votes in return.
Of course, Clinton didn’t talk about where the money for the free federal candy comes from. The New York audiences to which she speaks form the impression in their minds that the money will come from other people, just as the people in every other state, where the same thing happens, form the exact same impression.
The fact is that the free federal candy that Clinton is offering during her campaign for reelection comes from all U.S. taxpayers, compliments of the IRS. The loot is then put at the disposal of Congress, whose members then divvy it up among themselves. Then, each incumbent hits the road during reelection season proudly declaring, “I’m an effective congressman. I’m bringing you free federal candy. It won’t cost you a dime. Vote for me. Reelect me.”
Frederic Bastiat put it best: The government has become the great fiction by which everyone is trying to live at the expense of everything else — while doing his best to protect himself from the IRS — while remaining convinced that it’s all “free enterprise.”
How long will the American people continue to fall for this vote-buying scam? How long will they continue to let themselves be fleeced by federal politicians and bureaucrats who will stop at nothing to maintain their grip on their lives and pocketbooks?