Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Perpetual Profligacy

The parasitic plutocrats who occupy the clown house atop Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., are raising the illusory ceiling on the national debt by $1.9 trillion, sending a clear signal that they have no intention of trimming the government or its and their spending spree. The action increases by $6,000 for every U.S. household the burden that American citizens eventually are going  to have to pay. 

The same message was delivered by Steny Hoyer, the House of Reprensibles majority leader, when he came out against freezing congressional salaries until the federal budget is balanced. That is too far off, too far in the future, according to the leader of the mental midgets. The politicians who live large splendid lives at the expense of the taxpayers simply cannot be expected to go without bump ups for so long a time. 

Political rhetoric about balancing the budget and freezing appropriations notwithstanding, unrestrained out-of-control spending is continuing and will continue indefinitely. Frugality is something for an ever receding manana.            

Make no mistake about it, the political class has transformed itself from a group performing public services into a permanent ruling elite. Its members enjoy a level of comfort, ease, privileges and luxuries beyond the imagination of citizens they pretend to serve. They are oblivious to, or choose to ignore warnings given by the nation's founders of the dangers inherent in paying elected officials salaries high enough to enable office holders to live in comfort and increase their wealth. Our system of government was intended to confer authority on individuals able and willing to sacrifice their personal interests to perform public services for limited periods of time.

Worse yet is that the ignorance factories that government schools have become are turning out younger generations whose members know nothing of this.  Thus governmental authority now is controlled by politicians who spend their entire lives on public payrolls and even dynasties in which occupying public offices is the family business.

No wonder frugality is a thing of the past. 

And while the number of jobless and underemployed Americans has been exploding, government payrolls have been growing exponentially. The overlords are increasing their armies of foot soldiers to keep us serfs in line. 

Another thing that has gone by the board is the trade off that used to be required of public employees. They enjoyed job security and retirement and other benefits superior to, but levels of compensation lower than their counterparts in the private sector. No more. Today government employees also are paid substantially more than those engaged in productive endeavors. During the past year alone, the number of government employees being paid more than $100,000 annually (without taking into account any bonuses or overtime pay) has mushroomed geometrically. 

If we are going to stop and reverse this accelerating transfer of power from ordinary citizens to a self perpetuating ruling elite, we're going to have to have a revolution . . . and we're going to have it very soon lest the shift in the balance of power becomes irreversible. If we can mount an effective and successful revolution soon enough, it can be limited to removing the overlords (together with their sanctimoneous academic and sneering media supporters) from power.       

The alternatives, if we delay too long, will inevitably be far worse -- either enslavement to an overbearing bureaucracy overseeing and controlling every aspect of our lives or a far more violent revolution, one necessarily and deservedly involving gallows and guillotines for the oligarchs.