FRENCH CONNECTION
MONEY FOR WHATEVER THEY WANT
BY DOUG FRENCH

We’ve been taught that America is a bastion of capitalism. Left-leaning critics continually lecture the public with the notion that it is the dog-eat-dog Darwinian capitalism practiced in America that oppresses the poor, benefits the rich and perpetrates all that is evil. 

But the fact is that America is drifting toward socialism. And, it isn’t just those bleeding heart Democrats who are at fault. Republicans now more than ever are linking arms with their brothers and sisters across the aisle and pushing a big-government agenda that will ultimately end with America joining much of the rest of the world mired in the socialist swamp, with the Commander and Chief — President Bush — currently setting the course. 

Economics professor Jack Chambless outlined the history of America’s leftward march in his Freedomfest speech last month entitled, “Is Socialism America’s Destiny.” Chambless, who teaches at Valencia College in Orlando, noted that America’s founders — with the exception of Alexander Hamilton — believed that government spending should be limited to protecting the citizens’ rights and only those categories specifically mentioned in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

This all changed when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 and set out to increase the size and scope of the federal government. Initially, the Supreme Court (correctly) kept ruling that FDR’s “New Deal” programs were unconstitutional. Thus, the frustrated president proposed adding seats to the high court for every sitting justice over 70 years of age, a move that would have increased the number of justices from nine to 15. 

The court could see the handwriting on the wall. And the 1936 Butler case started the socialism ball rolling with these words: “Study of all these leads us to conclude that the reading by Mr. Justice Story (the Hamiltonian position) is the correct one … It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.”

Now those in government spend our money on whatever they want to. And — despite having a Republican majority in the House, a Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican President — spending, debt and taxes are growing at alarming rates, with little of the money going to protect the rights of citizens. In fact, much of it goes to violate our rights.

Professor Chambless pointed out that the income-tax burden is higher on Americans now than it was during WWII as well as the “guns and butter” years of LBJ. But, the burden will continue to grow exponentially, primarily from two programs — the War on Terror and Medicare. Chambless estimates that the net present value to fund Medicare — after increases in that program’s drug benefit from Bush — is $63 trillion.

Chambless told his audience that the “tax picture is not looking good.” Tax freedom day — the day of the year after which employees are working for themselves rather than the government — is now April 17. Property taxes are exploding everywhere and even Randian Alan Greenspan is proposing a hybrid tax system using both a national sales tax and income taxes to fund government.

What is happening to private property rights has Chambless most concerned. He believes there is “growing contempt for private property.” More than 10,200 properties have been taken from private owners in recent years by government agencies and given to other private owners. The idea of “public use” has been perverted to mean any property use that can generate more tax dollars. 

Living-wage laws, Chambless explains, “are nothing more than violations of private property,” as are predatory pricing laws that were implemented in Florida after the series of Hurricanes struck that state. “These laws require that you call (Florida Gov.) Jeb Bush if you notice that supply and demand are working,” Chambless deadpanned.

Regulation also continues to proliferate. There has been no deregulation under Bush, only more regulation. “Bush is protecting the domestic bra industry, of which we don’t have one,” Chambless noted. 

The professor believes that “socialism has genetic properties,” in addition to being taught to America’s children from infancy by way of cartoons that portray big companies as villains. “Most people are economically illiterate,” he explained, and “the public doesn’t like people on top very long, for instance Wal-Mart and Bill Gates.”

Although Chambless believes that the tide of socialism might be turned if more conservatives and libertarians became teachers, he seems resigned to the idea that America’s time of freedom is over. LW