To have a social safety net we must fund it. I myself am very comfortable paying the taxes needed to fund it. However there are many people out there who are short sighted enough to believe they are self sufficient and will never need the net. For them, it becomes an issue of paying for someone else who cannot (or will not in their opinion) manage their affairs properly. They probably took Atlas Shrugged as their own personal morality play. I can't change their opinion. But the congress people they send to Washington already know that these constituents will be the first to clamor for government assistance when a tornado blows down their home or a hurricane washes away their second home on a barrier island. Their extreme position that they don't need the federal government is the worst kind of hypocrisy.
Here is where there is an argument that should be made that is not. There is no doubt that the federal government oversees a very significant flow of cash. Where the pubs could get a rise out of even me is the efficiency with which this money is used. There are far too many overlapping federal agencies that oversee sprawling empires that often lose sight of their core missions. Congress too is guilty of passing far too many laws that are poorly written and giving the assignment to oversee the enforcement of those laws to agencies that they then refuse to properly fund. This must stop. Our system of government in 4 year increments will never allow for the kind of sweeping changes that are needed to rationalize the federal government's mission. An in an environment in which a significant proportion of American's don't even understand the federal government's contribution to our economy and society will never accept it no matter the size.
So to see us on the brink of a bi-partisan deal that would bring us closer to a balanced budget and right even a few wrongs in those sprawling agencies and vast rule books and then pull back is just galling. What is wrong with those people anyway?
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