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Thursday, December 27, 2007
Press Release/Position Statement
-From the desk of the Candidate-
As a country that works far more often than it
does not, our future rests on the same American Success Equation of liberty,
opportunity, and responsibility that has uplifted generations past. In
today's America, there is a struggle to determine whether this equation, or one
deceptively labeled as social welfare, will determine our future.
As a vision, the concept of welfare has much to
offer. The desire to help our fellow man beats strongly in the hearts of
most Americans, but sadly, when man plays God, it is difficult to match the
vision to the reality. What results from the stumbling rescue attempts of
government, bureaucracies, and even the well-intended is rarely and truly
helpful.
Today in America, we embrace four approaches to
social welfare, beginning with the most visible - individual welfare.
It is hard to argue with the mission of uplifting those needing a helping
hand. Unfortunately, as most often practiced, individual welfare has more
to do with help to get by versus help to get ahead. The result is an
assured relationship of hostile dependency that robs participants of their
dignity and autonomy in an expensive exchange for subsistence and hollow
hopes.
Community welfare is
an overlooked phenomenon that has you and me sending our taxes to Washington to
be skimmed and returned to us through a rigged lottery of earmarks and handouts
devoted to political special interests. In today's America, those defined
as the best politicians are those most able to bring home the bacon - the fact
that this bacon was ours to begin with gets lost in the spin.
Corporate welfare has
our legislators passing laws granting special privilege to business interests
that should be sinking or swimming in our free market economy strictly on their
own merits. The subprime loan bailout, relocation incentives, cronyism
with Halliburton, and a gerrymandered tax system are all examples of corporate
welfare that feeds business special interests at the expense of our collective
interests.
The fourth leg of the social welfare table
stands on one-sided trade welfare relationships that we have allowed to
flourish for decades. The closed markets of Japan, currency
manipulations by China, and trademark and patent indifferences practiced by
just about everyone else are forms of trade welfare that we tolerate through
indifference, habit, or possibly even intentional policy. The results are
a "fly now - pay later" philosophy that ignores realty and mortgages
our grandchildren's futures.
Grounded in the policies of Roosevelt's hope
generating "New Deal", many Democrats have a long-standing marriage
to most forms of welfare as a means to cementing loyalties.
Republican behavior of the past decade has more than demonstrated that party's
vulnerability to similar thinking applied to their own list of preferred
customers. In both cases, politicians carry heavy responsibility
for manipulating the public into believing that handouts are more about
uplifting the downtrodden than upholding the powerful.
It remains that in God's world there is no way
around personal responsibility and that the only real love is that which helps
people step up versus find a way to sit down. Whether it is an
individual, community, business, or country, there is no escaping that living
from the labors of others sidesteps the potentials of liberty, opportunity, and
responsibility beating in the heart of the American Dream.
America is fighting for its future and yet many
of us do not even know there is a struggle. Our politicians and many
media outlets continue to seduce us with hollow assurances and distractions
that mock the seriousness of our situation.
Yet history tells us, when faced with
adversity, Americans can always find a right way forward. The beginning
of that process is the realization that we are in real danger of losing the way
we have now - and that the outcome will certainly not be in support of our
welfare.
(#36 – Editorial/Social Welfare)
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