To the editor:
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
Thomas Jefferson
The federal government has been on a growth path since the Civil War. Now we are on the verge of an enormous transition in the power as the federal government works to pass health care and cap and trade plans that would extend its tentacles into almost every aspect of our lives like a cancer, and change the nature of our constitutional, free-enterprise republic that so many have sacrificed their wealth and lives to create and protect.
In my 70-plus years living in Massachusetts I have never feared my government. Now I do fear — truly fear — what the federal government has become and where it is going under President Barak Obama.
How did we get here? As a young man living in Massachusetts in the mid '50s, I noticed the symbiotic relationship grow between voters and politicians. To insure an election, politicians promised and delivered state assistance to their constituency. To protect this largess, the constituency would return the politicians to office over and over again.
Democrats were willing to provide the largess while Republicans offered far less, expecting the voters to be more independent and responsible. Republicans generally lose these elections.
Slowly the ratio of dependent voters to independent voters shifted, resulting in a General Court with a permanent Democratic majority. Today there are only about six Republican senators and less than 20 representatives. Consequently, social spending has greatly expanded and taxes were increased to pay for the ever larger budgets. In spite of this, revenue continues to fall and the budget deficit continues to grow.
The government of Massachusetts is largely inept, corrupt, nepotistic, and self serving. There are no consequences for this bad governance and most legislators will be returned to their office. The state has a substantial budget deficit. Raising taxes has resulted in reduced revenues.
Now it seems that the U.S. government is devolving into the Massachusetts model. In the last election, the American electorate voted into office a Democratic trifecta, a charismatic president and majorities in Congress.
After that sweep, Democrats drove to enact all the liberal legislation they had been frustrated in passing in the past decades because of those pesky Republicans.
However, a serious financial failure occurred during the last year of President Bush's term, which sent the country into a trillion-dollar deficit to stem the tide of bank and business failures. Unemployment is now more than 10 percent.
A reasonable person might think the government, in its mandate to protect the American people, would rally to stem the tide of the recession. But liberals, with their "tax and spend" mentality, exercised immense efforts to pass cap and trade and universal health care, both promising to tax the public to the tune of trillions, further endangering jobs. To add fuel to the fire, Congress passed a $780 billion stimulus bill. It was expected to create jobs. It appears most of jobs saved were for federal and state employees.
Meanwhile the dollar sinks and we are expected to be bypassed by China in 2016. Also in wings is inflation. Our poor maintenance of the economy is forcing our friends, competitors and enemies to consider replacing the dollar for Global Finance.
It is my hope that in the next election cycle we restore the balance to eliminate the tyranny of the super majority. As a conservative I have not found either party capable of governance.
Jules Gordon
Methuen
