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Posts Tagged “taxpayer”

Quick Hits II

First up is the latest column from Thomas Sowell entitled “Subsidizing Bad Decisions” in which he asks a very good question - “Why should taxpayers who live in apartments, perhaps because they did not feel that they could afford to buy a house, be forced to subsidize other people who could not afford to buy a house, but who went ahead and bought one anyway?” Read the whole thing, particularly the part where he talks about “saving for a rainy day” and “sadder but wiser.” I'd planned a longer post on the economy (and I still may do that), but this is pretty much the way I feel about it.

And, backing him up is some timeless advice from Adrian Pierce Rogers, via Neal Boortz

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

If only Washington, D. C. understood that simple truth.

Why I Write about Economics

Via Neal Boortz (4th item - archive page will work tomorrow), there is a perfect example on why I write about economic theory and policy. The question to the man on the street was “Should Congress continue to fund National Public Radio?” (NPR, for those of you in Rio Linda.) The response from one person, that was selected and printed…

Congress should continue paying for it because if they don't, the taxpayers will end up paying for it.

I so wish that was a joke, but it's not. This person is merely indicative of a large segment of our society that does not realize that Congress has no money to spend but the taxpayer's money.