Recently Vice President Joe Biden gave an interview on Yahoo! Finance Tech Ticker with Aaron Task. Several things were discussed but there are a couple that I would like to address.
First the VP went on about how the average tax refund was up about $250 over last year and his statements made about the new taxes imposed by the health care reform bill.
While I’m sure that most of us won’t turn down the “extra” $250 (on average) tax refund, but let’s call a spade a spade here. IT’S OUR MONEY! I just don’t understand why this is such a cause for celebration. If the average tax payer is getting back around $3000 I can guarantee that most of those same people paid in MUCH MORE than $3000 last year. Now the magnanimous federal government gives us back $250 more of our own money and they want us to think it’s a great thing. Well let’s pop the corks on the champagne bottles folks, ain’t life grand! Only government could come up with a scheme that FORCES you to give them an interest free loan for a year and only give you back a small pittance of what was loaned them, call it even and then boast about how this administration gave you back more of your money than the previous administration did. The arrogance of that type of thinking leaves me completely dumbfounded. It’s a if a robber steals $1,000 from you but gives you back $25 of it and says “Well at least I gave you back part of it, so you should be happy.” To be honest I’m not sure which is worse, the arrogance of government or the gullibility of the people that actually believe this tripe.
Next the VP talked about health care and taxes. To which he said:
”If you call that a ‘redistribution of income’ — well, so be it. I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair.”
Being fair, or as I’ve heard others say “doing the right thing” seems to be the excuse that every sitting president, vice president or other politician uses when trying to convince us they need more money and are fixing to take it from you regardless. The real irony in this statement is that by “being fair” and “doing the right thing” someone is forced to participate in whatever government program that is being hyped at the time. This is just another forced redistribution of wealth that is neither fair nor right.
Am I saying that these programs aren’t admirable in their scope and agenda? Not at all. What I’m saying is that I should not be forced to participate in any program in which I don’t want to contribute my hard earned money. It should be MY choice, not some central planning committee in Washington, DC. Anytime that government gets involved you can bet that a large portion of the monies allocated will be eaten up in administration costs. All new programs create new bureaucracies and these bureaucracies aren’t hindered by such trivial things as balance sheets or profit or loss statements that private businesses are bound. That’s because government bureaucracies have “bottomless pits” of money to be had, it’s called our paychecks and when that isn’t enough they have the Federal Reserve’s printing presses to fall back on.
Just think if you could run a business where EVERYONE had to buy what you were selling, you didn’t have to worry about expenses and if you ran short of cash you could just print more to cover costs!
