THERE’S NOT ENOUGH FREE STUFF TO GO AROUND

 

First December and now January’s jobs reports point to a disappointing, or nonexistent, recovery. Is anyone surprised by this? The news media is acting as if this is completely unexpected. The government continued issuing mountains of regulations hurting our free market economy until the whole thing collapsed in the sub-prime mortgage debacle of 2008. Right now we are piling on EPA regulations and 800,000 pages of new federal government red tape hurting jobs, following it with Dodd-Frank to regulate and punish the lending industry for doing what federal regulators required of them. The stimulus that turned out to not stimulate anything as it lined the pockets of campaign contributors. Endless extensions of unemployment benefits and a new healthcare law that provides significant disincentives to employment according to the CBO got added to the mess. What part of this is so hard to understand? The government is advertizing for people to sign up for food stamps and congratulating themselves for the 40% increase in the number of families that are dependent on the program. Today’s figures released by the department of labor show that 1.8 million fewer people are working than when the President took office.

I get it, I understand that most people on government subsidies vote for democrats to try and maintain the flow of free stuff but even democrats must realize the free stuff can’t go on forever. The country and I mean the whole society must put the negative stigma back into taking government handouts. Temporary assistance programs must be maintained as social safety nets without creating a permanent dependent class of citizens. Every program created to provide temporary assistance must have benefits that sunset over time to encourage people to find work. We should start recognizing people for their success who move into the work force from such programs and not celebrate endlessly growing welfare programs.

The disincentives to employment should be hunted down and eliminated. The war on poverty was kicked off with the slogan: “a hand up not a hand out”. The stated goal of the program was the elimination of dependency in America. We are losing the war! It is time to change tactics and realize the war cannot be won by giving people free stuff that is first taken from other citizens that earned it. Don’t jump up and condemn me as heartless or any of that B.S., I make payroll every other week for good hard working employees. We are trying to hire at our company and find the road blocks almost impossible to overcome. Many people interview with no intension of accepting a job until their unemployment benefits run out while at the same time the specter of Obama-care hangs over us with its unknown costs.  Our products must somehow reach the market through a growing obstacle course of regulations, fees and taxes without becoming so expensive that customers choose foreign low cost alternatives.

If the leaders of this country on both sides of the isle don’t grow up and stop the federal leviathan the free stuff will stop flowing and they will have a revolution on their hands. The people are speaking out and calling for relief from our own government. Sadly our elected officials have become so insulated from main street they no longer seem capable of hearing us.