With the Obama administration making its final preparations to take over, there is a lot of discussion about socialism in the future of America. Socialism is a socio-economic system in which a governing body is meant to divide the resources and wealth of the land evenly amongst the people. It is essentially the redistribution of wealth, in one form or another. While it may sound good at first, the long term effects are disastrous to the freedom of the people and to the financial state of the government and/or people. We must fight to stop socialism or we risk creating a very bad situation for future generations.
So why is socialism so disastrous? Because it requires the intervention of government in our lives and the markets, whether it be in the form of taxes, regulations, or restrictions. Everyone is required to adhere to these regulations regardless of whether or not they will actually be benefiting from the redistribution of wealth. Those who don’t benefit are losing their money for no good reason. Advocates of socialism may say that this is fair, since someone who is less fortunate benefits from the redistribution. While this may be the case at first, socialism ends up hurting even the less fortunate in the long run because the burden on the successful grows so much that the help they could provide is also limited. Furthermore, should we really punish the successful in order to level the playing field? Should their hard work go to waste?
The notion of a redistribution will also make some people lazy because they will be receiving everything for free regardless of whether or not they work. This will put all of the monetary burden on the working class, which will slowly begin to diminish as people no longer see the point in working since their profits merely go to the state and they end up with the same amount of money regardless of whether or not they work. Once this idea spreads, the country starts to become poorer and the socialist system eventually goes bankrupt. This in turn makes the government bankrupt, as it backed the socialist system. At this time the government has no money and neither do the people, since they both paid it into the socialist system. There is the end of that government as revolution is sure to come soon. A very prevalent example of this trend is with the social security crisis. The program is on pace to go bankrupt soon, so the government will either have to take massive amounts of debt to pay out to its members or they will have to end the program and virtually steal the people’s promised money. This is why we need to end social security and move away from other such programs.
Not only do they not work, but money is lost in the transition from people and the private sector to the government (in the form of taxes) and back to the people (in the form of socialist programs and welfare) due to the costs of bureaucracy. Also, what happens if inflation takes place? The amount of money won’t change, but what the government can buy with it does. What happens when the government can’t pay for what it promised (yet it still taxed for it)?
As Americans we need to understand the evils of socialism. We need to understand that in the long run socialism creates more problems and questions than it solves. It may seem good at first glance, but in the end it will ruin us. Socialism will not only ruin our economic state, but it will limit our freedoms. Imagine that, massive limits on freedom in the land of freedom.
Socialism is the opposite of capitalism, the economic system which this country and any free country is built around. It hurts the people and the government and through the regulations it places, also business. We need to spread the word that socialism does not work and that we don’t need government to treat us like infants. We can provide for ourselves; we don’t need the government taking our money and placing restrictions on us in exchange for services that we can purchase ourselves.
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If you have read my previous posts you may have realized that I oppose social security and believe the program should be ended. It just isn’t sustainable as the population grows. Part of the reason behind this is because money is lost in the transition between the people to the government and back to the people once again. It would be a lot more efficient to trust the people in saving for their own retirements instead of treating them like they are incompetent to do so. The program was never meant to be permanent and it is about time that we realize it is impossible to keep it going forever, even if some people want it to.
So do we just leave the people who have already put money into the system (via income taxes) into the blue? No, I in no way support that. What I propose is that we stop collecting money for social security from all new workers. Those that have already paid their taxes into the system deserve to get money back when they retire. Of course, there isn’t enough money in the system for this to work, but the government can take loans to pay off the money. If the system is kept running in its current style, there won’t be enough money in a few decades anyway. This is one of the very few situations where I support deficit spending and it is simply to get us out of this downward spiral. We will accumulate more debt temporarily, but in the long run it will be a lot cheaper and fairer to the people who have paid their taxes than allowing the system to crash.
If we allow the program to continue as is, one of two things will happen once it runs out of money (which is inevitable due to the ratio of new workers to people collecting money.) Those two things are that the government will raise income taxes and take on even more debt to pay people social security or the age limit for collection will continue to rise, so a lot of people will get a lot less money or maybe even none at all. It will be an unfair situation and the government will essentially be stealing the people’s money. We must act soon if we don’t want this to happen. Instead of bailing out every company and entity that is going bankrupt, why don’t we help out this program and in turn create a more stable financial future for the American people?
Update (1/23/2009): After thinking about this a bit more, I think that there is a way we can end social security without cheating the people and creating so much debt so quickly(because if the country couldn’t get that many loans, it would still come from the people’s pockets through inflation.) It would still cost a lot, but the debt would be spread out over a longer period of time to make it more sustainable and to avoid inflation. The way to do this is to not immedietaly stop collecting social security taxes, but to gradually lower the amount that is collected from new workers. These new workers would later also be able to get less in return when they retire (which is fair, since they paid less.) This system allows some more funds to continue into the social security fund, while at the same time slowly eliminating both the tax and the payouts, until eventually the program is ended.
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Our founding fathers created a system based around a small Federal government in order to ensure that we, the people have maximum freedom and say in our lives and what we do with them. It was a great concept and one which led to the quickest rise of any nation in world history. The United States became a superpower economically and militaristically in less than two hundred years. Small government made us the greatest nation ever and at the same time gave us more freedom than any people had ever experienced in the civilized world.
Despite the success of limited government, we have drifted away from those ideals over the past century and we are finally starting to see it all catch up to us. We now seem to think that we need government in order to function, but upon further scrutiny it is clear that we really don’t.
In theory, big government may seem good, but in practice it just isn’t. With every new government agency or program we, the people are forced to pay for it. We pay for it with our money through taxes and our liberty through restrictions and violations of privacy.
Not only are we forced to pay for big government, but it just isn’t sustainable over time. For example, look at social security. The program is quickly headed towards bankruptcy as the baby boomer generation starts to collect their funds. The incoming tax revenue just isn’t enough to cover the costs of the payouts. Unless something is done, the government will end up having to close the program and leave millions of Americans who paid their income taxes without any assistance when they retire. Essentially, the government will end up stealing these people’s hard earned money unless something is done.
Sadly this is the story of big government. At first the idea seems great, but it just doesn’t work. Not only that, but it gives the government more power through the taxing systems and with that it limits the people’s freedom to do what they want with their money. Instead of having the government provide services such as social security, why not just allow the people to save the money for retirement on their own? Don’t tax the citizens for it and don’t give them the money back later on. We must learn to trust the people with their own money. Big government has an underlying idea that the government must baby the people because they can’t take care of themselves. Is this really the way we feel about ourselves and fellow Americans? Shouldn’t we have control over our own money instead of having the government tell us what to do?
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