Liberty Matters

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pitched their economic plans today. Unsurprisingly, both plans relied on heavy government involvement. To summarize, Obama wants taxpayer relief and more government regulation. Clinton, on the other hand, offered a huge government-backed job training program. What’s wrong with this picture?

In order to fund Clinton’s job training program, she is calling for $2.5 billion per year. This money will be used to help workers train for new jobs and improve skills for existing jobs. Anyone want to guess where this money will come from, because she sure did not offer any ideas. We can make a pretty well-educated bet, however, that the money would come from higher taxes bestowed on the rest of us. I want to know just how great we should feel about this since we are the ones funding it, and not by any choice of our own. That’s not even the worst of it, however. Hillary doesn’t care how one loses their job. She feels everyone should be allowed to tap into this funding for job training. In other words, if one gets fired for being unproductive or doing drugs, they will have the same opportunity as those who worked their butts off but were fired, or laid off, because of circumstances they cannot control, such as downsizing or the movement of their position overseas. She has to be kidding, right? Unfortunately, she’s not. If I choose to help my neighbor, should that not be my choice alone? Where is the morality in forcing me to help people I don’t even know by threat of prison if I don’t comply?

Obama has a different view on helping the economy. He wants mandated relief for homeowners. Beyond that, he is also suggesting a $30 billion economic stimulus package. Mind you, this is before we have even received the money from the current stimulus package. We also must not forget a $1,000 tax cut for “working families.” Combine all that with his belief that government must regulate private business even more than they already do and you have yourself a recipe for a strain of Socialism. So, once again, I have to ask where is government supposed to be getting this money from? What Barack is suggesting is a lot of spending combined with cutting the government’s revenue. How exactly does this work? The truth is, it doesn’t. The money will have to come from somewhere, and whether that somewhere happens to be increased taxes, borrowed money, or the increased printing of currency, it will have to be paid for at some point. Take a guess at who is going to foot the bill. That’s right, you and I. Are you ready to bail out those who chose not to learn more about the mortgage they were agreeing to before signing the bottom line? Are you willing to give people who have shown they do not take the time to read the fine print relating to their single largest purchase more money?

When government tries to force any form of Socialist-based policy, on the populace, under the guise of morality everyone gets hurt. There is absolutely no morality in forcing one to pay for another or to do for another. Charity should be a choice, a decision made by the individual. It is not something that one should be required to do. All this does is breed resentment against a particular class of people. For presidential candidates that spend so much time espousing the greatness of removing class lines, they sure do seem to be doing their part to increase the distance between the classes.