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Where Does the Money Belong

Arizona Summer Wildcat

Note: For anyone planning on graduating, getting a job and paying taxes, please read! For those who have been following our idiosyncratic Congress in the news for the last several weeks, you know that among the list toppers of its agenda has been that thing which is the most divisive resource in all of government: the budget. That dreadful entity which causes our Congress people to roll up their sleeves and duke it out, that thing which paralyzes the government in October every now and then, and that thing which we grudgingly help to supply every April 15th.

It's "politics as usual" in Washington as the old cliche goes. Democrats vs. Republicans. The issue: the Budget Surplus. The Democrats stand unified and proclaim that the expected budget surplus must be ear marked for future government spending on social security and expanded government programs. They also want to be very generous and give us hard-working Americans a very modest tax break.

Now, on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans are taking a slightly different position. Not only are they taking a different position but a very radical position! It goes something like this: "Hey my GOP buddies, after we pay our bills we are going to have all this money left over! So why don't we give it back to all those good, hardworking Americans who overpaid us!"

Wow! What a radical and novel idea that is! Giving back to you and I what we gave them.

Maybe an analogy can better clarify the positions that our two political camps are taking. Imagine going to Fry's shopping center and purchasing a bundle of different goods. When you get up to the register, the cashier totals up the purchases and tells you that the total is $37.50. You then proceed to take a $50 bill out of your wallet and give it to the cashier, expecting to receive $12.50 in change. But when you give the $50 bill to the cashier, she gives you no change.

Instead, she tells you that next time you visit the store and make a purchase, Fry's will give you $12.50 worth of goods of its choosing, beyond your purchase. The cashier informs you that Fry's philosophy is that it believes it can choose the goods in the store for you better than you can. And so it will spend the $12.50 (owed to you) for you on your next visit.

I don't know about you, but I'd prefer if the cashier just returned my change to me and let me use it in the way that makes me most happy! And I think I know better than it what goods make me most happy. This analogy exemplifies the different positions in Congress. The Democrats want to keep our change and decide how to spend it in the future, making our bloated government even bigger. To make the situation even more appalling, they want the greatest portion of the budget surplus to go to keeping social security afloat. It is a travesty when an entire party in Congress wants to keep throwing our money at a system that is insolvent and broken.

Instead of trying to fix the system, they just let it continue to live pathetically and absorb huge amounts of scarce resources. They would best serve their country if they let this moribund institution die its natural death (instead of paying huge bills to keep it on life support) and replace it with a brand new one that functions efficiently, fairly and effectively; one that would put the old system to shame with its performance. It is time that we stop looking strictly to the public sector for Social Security in our odd age and start looking to the private sector as well, as some members in the other party have suggested. Countries like Argentina serve as evidence that semi-private systems easily out perform inefficient and moribund public systems.

While the Democrats want to continue on in an expansive and futile manner, Republicans want to return our change to us ($800 billion). In fact, the Republican controlled House of Representatives and Senate already passed bills to this effect, which they will reconcile next session. But don't get too excited, we will never see that $800 billion since the president has already promised to veto such a bill.

This raging debate calls to mind American history circa 1783. When the framers of the Constitution drew up that marvelous document, they knew something that 216 years later the Democrats still have not learned.

That is, that social power is a zero sum game. The more power the government has, the less power and liberty We the People have. The more responsibilities it assumes for us in our lives, the less responsibilities we can assume over our own lives. The framers understood this and thus created something termed "limited government."

A government that can take our money, pay its bills and refuse to give us back what it owes us is a government that is a usurper of power and outside its original limits. It is a government that the forefathers of this country fought to overthrow. I pose a rhetorical question: Where does the money belong? In our pockets or Uncle Sam's?