We need to focus on one foundational fact: Our government was doing all the things it’s doing now back in 1989, including the EPA and everything else, and on HALF the money it’s spending now.

It’s the spending. It was the spending ten years ago, it’s the spending now, and it will be the spending ten years from now. I’ve shown the numbers. It is literally impossible to raise taxes on the rich to the point where we can afford the size of government we have now, and the half of taxpayers who don’t pay any income taxes now will burn Washington down before they’ll pay any in the future.

We’ve done it. We’ve created a democratic majority who lives off the minority, the perfect example of a runaway engine.

For instance, what do you do with the EPA?

I’m all for decentralization and giving the power back to the states but because pollution crosses state lines you can’t really handle it on the state or local levels.

And I think the answer to robbing the rich is a 4% flat tax.

We just need to reduce the size of government to the point were 4% will balance the budget.

That the ideal form of government in the eyes of most people is an absolute dictatorship where the leaders think exactly like they do.

The founders of this country tried to construct a federal system where almost all the power belonged to the states, and the power of the Federal government was divided and severely restricted.

For almost a century now in the United States, we have been pushed in the opposite direction, towards a highly-centralized, all-powerful Federal government. And of course, power corrupts.

A good case can be made that almost all democracies devolve into this state, as hiring the government to loot other citizens becomes the norm. In the old days, you could run to countries where there was more freedom. How the hell do you do that now?

One of the reasons I went into the field of space transporation and settlement back in my college days was the need, easily seen even then, for a “safety valve” for free people. That didn’t work out.

But nobody wants to give that up, either in the leadership or the electorate.

Everybody thinks that if we just get the right all-powerful gods on the thrones then manna will fall from the sky, every tear will be wiped from our eyes, everything we need will be free, and our enemies will be punished and our friends rewarded.

Of course, everybody in the country has a different list of enemies and friends.

America needs to grow up. Nanny states and “blue model” societies are dying in droves as I write this, and still nobody gets it.

Anyway, they all suck. I’d move somewhere were I able but I can’t figure out where the hell would be any better. *big sigh*

The attempt to criminalize abortion was a good example of what you are talking about.

But as far as a “mandate to do anything they wanted after they were elected” is a far more acccurate description of the newly elected Obama administration.

In Wisconsin, state emplyees were asked to pay 12% of healthcare premiums as opposed to the 6% they are currently paying. The US private employee pays 21% on average. Also Wisconsin state workers on average make about $1800 more that private sector workers in the same fields.

I’m still scratching my head with the outcome on that one.