The Belmont Club’s Richard Fernandez discusses the Claremont Institutes recent history of the growth of government spending. Read this chart and weep:
He points out that for all the griping about the size of our Defense budget, “human resource” spending (Education, Health, Medicare, Welfare, Social Security, etc…) has risen faster and is now far larger than the rest of government spending.
That spending is your money, today, paying for votes bought yesterday. The game continues as they buy votes today with future money.
He says there is nothing to be done:
it can do is make the prison cell a little more comfortable and efficient by curbing the fantasies on each side of the aisle and to concentrate on rejecting obvious imbecilities.
Of course the spending isn’t about doing good. It is about votes. But since the 16th amendment gave the mob access to your wallet, and since we are now well past the point where most people are in the wagon, voting it stopped isn’t likely. Only rebellion, perhaps John Galt style:
An engineer by trade, Galt is the male hero of the story;[1] his actions include withdrawing his talents, ‘stopping the motor of the world’, and leading the ‘strikers’ against the ‘looters’.
will end it.
I prefer Galt because it doesn’t involve the killing that usually marks transitions between governmental approaches.
In a Galtian revolt the productive say “enough” and stop pulling the wagon.
Who will lead this? Who is our John Galt? I don’t believe it is a person – I think it will be a technology. When private citizens have anonymous and secure communication they can create their own banking system. They can opt out of the system where the “looters” take their cut. Then it won’t be one person, but billions that say “keep your hands out of our pockets”.
Watch for the government to control encryption. Probably under the guise of the War on Terror. Don’t let them.
Update: Early enablers (E-Gold) of real John Galts pay the price of getting between a government and your money:
The company faces fines of $3.7 million, Douglas Jackson faces a prison sentence of up to 25 years on both charges, and Barry Downey and Reid Jackson face maximum prison sentences of up to 5 years. Sentencing for all defendants has been set for Nov. 20, 2008.