During the Revolutionary war Thomas Paine started one of his famous pamphlets with the phrase, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” He made the case that the Colonies should be free from the British who taxed everything from slaves to molasses. One has to wonder what Mr. Paine would have to say about the times in which we live.
A simple comparison between 1775 and today is startling. “By 1775, the British government was consuming one-fifth of its citizens’ GDP, while New Englanders were only paying between 1 and 2 percent of their income in taxes. British citizens were also weighed down with a national debt piled up by years of worldwide warfare that amounted to £15 for each of the crown’s eight million subjects, while American local and colonial governments were almost debt-free.” (Wikipedia)
The war had to be more about liberty than taxation.
The Townshend Act of 1767 was a series of new taxes that took away the colonial government’s right to collect taxes. That led to an outcry of “Taxation without representation.” The Act was later repealed.
It can hardly be said that the policies of today’s U.S. federal government represent the will of the people. They are more about controlling power through wealth distribution and creating government dependence. They reached a crescendo by paying workers more to sit at home than to work. The new $3.5 trillion spending bill calls for greatly expanding the IRS – ironically, taxing us to pay for more taxation to come.
The U.S. debt is almost $85 trillion, with every taxpayer’s share over a quarter of a million. Our federal government spends at a rate of over $7 trillion a year, while taking in less than $4 trillion. The interest alone is over $400 billion a year. The debt clock (as of Aug. 27) is clicking faster than anyone can read and that’s before the pending tax packages go into effect. There has to be a point of no return in there somewhere.
But they say that it’s just some numbers on a page; we must print more money. That devalues our currency and steals the wealth of everyone.
The incompetent Marxists running the Biden Administration have made many moves that exacerbate our financial situation. It’s impossible to calculate the total cost of the Dems’ “Open Borders” policy. How can it ever end? And shutting down the Keystone pipeline took us all the way from energy independence to begging for imported oil. In only seven months gas prices went from $1.87 per gallon to nearly $5. That stupid action was more costly to the average American than any tax hike in history; and there are scores of other costly decisions, such as rent moratoriums, COVID stimulus checks, and too many others to list. Knowing that Biden was / is Obama’s Charlie McCarthy makes it hard to attribute these moves to anything other than a long-term Marxist effort to collapse our economy. Communism springs from desperation.
Many are concerned about the loss of liberty they feel by the government’s strong-handed mandates – and resist to the point of refusing vaccinations. Liberty should always be more important than protection.
Even after the dust settles in Afghanistan, it will be impossible to predict the long-term implications of Biden’s unbelievable lack of an exit plan. Announcing the date of your withdrawal and allowing your enemy to police the event, while leaving them with $85 million in state-of-the-art weaponry (not to mention a truck load of cash) has to be the dumbest move ever. Joe’s bungled withdrawal will be studied and critiqued by military historians, forevermore.
Yessiree. These are the times. I’ll bet ole Thomas Paine would be flabbergasted.
Atmore native Curtis Parker resides in Orange Beach. His email address is curtisparker1@bellsouth.net.