No matter where you come down on FEMA’s inability — or more accurately lack of funding — for hurricane relief for the back-to-back disasters on the East Coast, one thing should stand immediately and perfectly clear: our federal government is the worst steward of your tax dollars ever.
That, by the way, includes King George III (you know, the idjit whose taxation policies kicked off the American Revolution).
Whether it’s the Biden Administration raiding FEMA coffers to help illegal immigrants, or if Congress just hasn’t approved additional funds for disaster relief, our leaders have not done right by the American people.
Billions of dollars are being spent in the Ukraine for no good reason, as countering Russian aggression isn’t our battle unless they’re invading our nation.
Billions of dollars being spent on wars in the Middle East — going all the way back to Desert Storm — have resulted in precisely nothing. The Taliban still is going strong, ISIS is still kicking up its heels, and every terrorist organization from the PLO to Hamas and Hezbollah is operating pretty much unrestrained, as is evidenced by the ongoing war against Israel.
The campaign promises of student loan forgiveness and first-time homeowner assistance further underscore that our elected officials are approaching the coffers and spending like we elected an entire slate of drunken sailors.
Funds spent on specific special interests, while nominally for U.S. citizens, are given in an attempt to buy votes as well as solve problems that were created by the government’s spending habits in the first place. Then, with the amount of funds being sent overseas being added to that total show that there is not now, and hasn’t been for a very long time, anything like fiscal responsibility in Washington, D.C.
A government at any level does not generate any income or anything of substance; it simply moves around funds that it has taken — by threat of force — from taxpayers, and for the most part, those governments, mostly at the state and local levels (at least in Texas) follow spending laws and budgets.
At the national level, though, that kind of financial thinking hasn’t been around for decades; for FY 2024, the feds spent $1.9 trillion more than they have taken in. Given that this has been the case for a very long time, our vaunted leaders have racked up a $35 trillion debt.
Putting it all together, you have a government that is practicing the exact opposite of fiscal restraint and sending billions across the pond for aid to other peoples and countries, there’s nothing left to help the people here that need it — disaster victims and veterans to name but a few.
The icing on this particular type of spending cake is that the money they’re blowing through is yours, and there is absolutely no sign of it stopping soon. In fact, every campaign promise, every federal plan proposed or in place, continues to grow, and politicians are looking to us to continue to feed the bottomless pit of federal bank accounts.
The only way this changes is with us at the ballot box, by electing candidates that want fiscal responsibility, that believe that government is not the answer to every problem, that respect private property and individual rights.
Since early voting for the 2024 general election starts Monday. Let’s make this a start of reclaiming the country of the people, by the people and FOR the people.
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto News-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing.com.
