Cash for Clunkers: More Pork Spending?
by While the cash for clunkers program is portrayed as being friendly to the environment, we must keep in mind that its funding, which has gone nine times over its proposed limit, comes out of the pockets of taxpayers.
Just about anyone would love to trade in an old car, and get a few thousand dollars off a new one. Especially if it appears that they aren’t the ones paying for it. In many cases, they aren’t for the most part, but are being subsidized by their neighbors, and others around them. They are receiving money from the hard-earned incomes of their peers and fellow countrymen, though they see it as a gift from an amorphous, anonymous government.
What we as the American people need to realize is that, there is no free lunch. Money from the government comes out of our own pockets, and we need to take a stance, and make sure that it isn’t being spent on arbitrary, pork projects. Obama claimed that his administration would not support lobbyists, but certainly, environmental groups can be counted among the lobbyists. The corporations and automakers covered under this bill also have taxpayer dollars pointed their way, and effectively, their profits are being driven out.
The corporations of the United States are often demonized. But this is only because this suits the political agendas of those in power. This expediency is a very troubling issue, for in order to appease the masses for the moment, the politican makes sacrifices toward the overall good of the country.
If we take a look at the constitution, the very fundamentals on which this country is based upon, the functions of Federal Government are enumerated as to “provide for the common defense”, “promote the general welfare”, and to secure the “blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity”. Arbitrary spending is not a legitimate function of government, and is not a legitimate use of the product of the American people, and if we look at the 10th amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
What we have today, is a rather large, and unwieldy federal government, far from what the Framers of the United States intended. The function of federal government is to do what the States alone cannot; conduct foreign policy, wage war and provide for the defense of the nation, and issuing currency, among other things.
Since the 1920s, we have long strayed from this decentralized mode of government, and perhaps have taken the large burden of the federal government for granted.
Federal government should be kept within its limitations, and not be let to meddle in the private sector.
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