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The Federalist Diaries
Are
We Going to Lose This One?, Part 4
Libertarian
ideologues and moneygrubbers stand aside. Make room for the people.
Statement
of August 19, 2008, by Don McCanne,
retired
physician and an advocate on behalf of Physicians for a National Health
Program, an organization of fourteen thousand American physicians advocating
for single-payer national health insurance.
I believe that there
would be a solution to the malaise outlined below:
the shareholders would take over the corporation or the patients the
asylum. In other words, instead
of our expending energy complaining about Congress, we should be on the
inside explaining and getting redress. Does
anyone not know that the size of Congress kept growing until about a hundred
years ago, from one hundred fifty members in 1789 to four-hundred
thirty-five members around 1910? Why
should we not have a larger Congress now, so that the members be more
answerable to us and divide up the work so that we prevent the kinds of
problems mentioned below?
...Beyond
the presidential campaign, consider why barely 10 percent of Americans
express confidence in Congress.
Congress
ignored for years the festering problems at Fannie and Freddie, despite
lights shined on these problems. Now we taxpayers (you and me) are exposed
to some $5 trillion of their debt.
Unfortunately,
this political irresponsibility is the rule rather than the exception.
This
is the same Congress that woke up one night to discover 12 million illegal
immigrants in our country.
And
the same Congress that continues to ignore the $50 trillion or so (whose
counting?) in unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare.
The
pathetic dynamics are quite clear. Being honest about problems means taking
responsibility and making hard decisions. Why do that when you can ignore
them, let them fester and grow, and pawn them off on the next generation
when you will be long gone?
Government
-- federal, state, and local -- now takes about one of every three of the
dollars we produce. Estimates are that by mid-century it will be more than
one of every two.
Are
we going to be in rocking chairs telling our grandchildren how we remember
when
America
was a great country?
From “Mortgaging Our
Children’s Future”, by Star Parker, “Star Parker on C-SPAN”, August
4, 2008.
November 27, 2008
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