What? You were expecting a telthon?

Now THERE’S a surprise!

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-raise-taxes-pay-jobs-bill-231154951.html

One last retort for our healthy debate. It is a mistake to cherry pick historical facts to support ones argument. True Jefferson did use the federal government to do the things you mentioned. Those acts serve as the exception. The main body and philosophy of Jefferson’s work was an inherent distrust of the Federal Government. He spoke of his election in 1801 as a revolution against the Federalist movement. Once elected he systematically tried to dismantled the federal government. The paradox of his willingness to use the federal government to “promote the general welfare” and his determination to “secure the Blessings of Liberty” provided a healthy balance, where an over active, far reaching federal government was the exception to the rule, not the norm we see today.

“A government big enough to supply you with everything you need is a government big enough to take away everything that you have…. The course of history shows that as the government grows, liberty decreases.”

-Thomas Jefferson

I don’t know for sure if he actually wrote it, but it rings true today.

I share some of your sentiments about entrenched pols and the abuses brought on by public employee unions and their elected enablers.

However, I don’t think of any of the functions I mentioned as “services,” any more than I think of national defense as a service. Nor do I see them as encroaching on my liberty. I think they are pretty consistent with the words in the Preamble to the Constitution. I spent my formative years in a rural Kansas town with a volunteer fire department. It was pretty cool, but I doubt it would work out these days in San Francisco.

As long as we’re quoting Thomas Jefferson, let’s remember that he established one of the first public universities and conceptualized a system of universal public education — elementary through higher ed. “Universal” meaning white males in those days. TJ sent Lewis and Clark into the West, using public funds, with instructions to record all kinds of scientific observations. I’ll bet people like TJ and Ben Franklin would have been all for government underwriting endeavors such as NASA and medical research.

By the way, I know that quote is all over the internet. It might be something TJ would agree with, but I question whether he actually ever said or wrote it. It doesn’t even read like 18th Century vernacular, and “taking care of them” was not even part of the narrative about what government should or shouldn’t be in those days of agrarian self-sufficiency.

I am not a Ron Paul Libertarian, and I agree with your premise about our basic need for government. But let us not forget that we are a Representative Republican Democracy, and for 30 years my representative (George M.)has actively disrupted the balance of liberty and government intervention. It is now normal for the citezens of this country to excpect that the government will provide from cradle to grave. Most of those services you mentioned are needed by the public, but at what cost? Our American brand of democracy is in danger. Men like George Miller and the like have figured how to permantly secure a voting base by paying the would be voter with U.S. Tax dollars! The cost of our needed benefits will; one day, reduce this great beacon we call America, to a dwindling ember.

Men like Miller and Stark have sat in their positions for over 30 years. They are seasoned professionals that continue to “serve” their local communities. They are a self fulfilling prophecy, offering more and more legislation to justify their positions; all along the way offering Tax dollars to a select group of voters and ever increasing the size and scope of government.

Ask yourself. Is our liberty worth these services? Virtue is at the heart of our great Republic. I do not see virtue in paying a rank and file fire fighter $190k a year, while the common citizens toils for one tenth of that total. I do not see virtue with our government allowing collective bargains to drain the treasury. Virtue cannot exist in a career politician.

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

-Thomas Jefferson

I don’t like bloated bureaucracy or layered and overly centralized management anymore than you do. The real cost is not the money but the fact that they get in the way. I like the idea of sunsetting programs. Same crap happens in the corporate world. Just ask the CEO of Bank of America — about to downsize by about 40,000 people. But I still want people checking the food supply, approving prescription drugs before the hit the market, cops going after bad guys, firemen putting out fires, teachers in the classrooms, people fixing roads and bridges, CDC scientists and county health departments nipping contagious diseases in the bud, somebody preventing businesses from externalizing their costs by dumping PBC’s into the rivers and lakes or particulates into the air. Ron Paul thinks the free market will handle all that.