Where's the Equal Protection?

Considering that I've actually read the 14th amendment, I am aware that the equal protection clause specifies that the states can't deny equal protection under the laws; but shouldn't we be able to expect equal treatment and equal protection under the laws of the federal government as well?  We should, but we aren't going to get it and that point has really been driven home in the last month or so.

We don't get treated equally by the government.  Not at all.  Especially when it comes to a tax code that says some pay 35% of their paycheck, others pay 25%, some pay 10% and some pay nothing at all.  And instead of railing against the inequality of this, people scream that those paying 35% aren't paying enough.  It should be equal.  The same percentage for everybody.

One of my pet peaves is that somebody making the exact same amount of money as I do will pay much less in taxes than I do because they have children and I don't.  As if not being able to find somebody who wants to marry me and being physically incapable of having children isn't hard enough, I have to pay higher taxes as a result of those things.  How's that equal?  If it's based on pay it should be based on pay.

Now we have the backroom deals where some states will get money and others won't.  Some people will have to pay taxes on their healthcare plans and others won't.  This bank should have to pay back money they borrowed, but that one won't.  This company that is failing gets saved but the government, but your company won't.

We have taken a country begun with the belief that we are created equal, and legislated inequality.

During the first round of the tea parties we were told to "learn our history" and that the original tea parties were about taxation without representation.  Well I don't know about you, but I'm not feeling represented.

The colonists were fed up with Parliament saying we need money for these people over here, so we're going to take it from those people over there.  Isn't that exactly what's happening now?  Isn't our government saying that if the poor need money they can just take it from "the rich".  Talk about a lack of representation, the rich people in the US have no representation at all.  If you dare to stand up against the idea that they should always be on the hook for paying whatever the government needs, then you are villified.  I'm not rich, not even close to it, but the way they are expected to foot the bill for everybody else in the country offends my sense of fairness.

If we're going to have an income tax, then everybody, and I mean everybody, who earns money should pay the same percentage of their paycheck in taxes.  What's more, I think we should do away with the payroll taxes and everybody should have to write a monthly check for their taxes.  Of course the government will never do this and it's not hard to figure out why.

If those in the lower income brackets, which I have fallen in for much of my adult life, were to actually have to feel the impact on their own checkbooks, they would be the fiercest guards against government waste.  The staunchest defenders of small government and personal liberties.  If you have nothing and the government is taking that from you, you're going to be sure they're not wasting your hard earned money. This is exactly why the government works to exempt these people from any taxes at all.  With no skin in the game they don't really care how the money is spent.  Why should they?

Can you imagine what would happen if there were a house in Congress where, like the Senate with the states, every tax bracket had the same number of representatives and had the same representation? 

I'm completely fed up with the legislation of inequality in this country and my point, after all my rambling, is that if a piece of legislation applies to one person, it should apply to all people equally.

Social Justice - You're Responsible for the Irresponsible

As Obama announces his plans on how to get TARP paid back we see yet another recurring theme within this administration.  That the responsible are always on the hook for bailing out the irresponsible.  Although now this goes beyond those tax payers who spent wisely bailing out those who didn't, or even tax payers bailing out irresponsible companies and expands to the responsible companies bailing out the irresponsible ones.

If a bank did not make irresponsible decisions and did not require TARP funds, that does not in any way relieve them from the responsibility of paying back those funds they didn't take.  (Say what?)  If a bank took the TARP funds but have already paid them back, they will now be held responsible for paying back the money that somebody else borrowed.

Obama says that this is to ensure that the tax payers are paid back the money they lent, but for this tax payer it offends my sense of justice.  I want the money paid back, but I want it paid back by the people who actually borrowed it.  Forcing somebody to pay a debt which is not their own is the definition of injustice.  And this from the people who keep touting Social Justice as their theme.

So what is social justice?  Is it the belief that somebody else should be punished for your actions?  Have we reinstated the whipping boy methodology?  This appears to be the case.

Who Are the Fat Cats

Obama went on 60 minutes and talked about the Banking Fat Cats who took billions from American taxpayers and then give raises and big bonuses. 

All this while the government is expanding, creating more departments we don't need and increasing pay (which is already frighteningly higher than the equivalent in the private sector) while the rest of us go without a raise and pray we still have a job. 

Gee, seems to me that in the fat cat department the bankers got nothing on the federal government. 

We Perform Best When We Fly Without A Net

We've become a nation protected from the consequences of our actions. It sounds good, but it's not good. It's actually destroying us. Feeling the consequences of our actions is what teaches us what we should and should not do. A lesson we've been pitifully slow to learn. We make a misstep and fall on our faces, or even just skin our knees, and the nanny government runs in to protect us. This is fine for a nanny and a toddler. It's not fine for adults and their government.

Our lives are shaped by the decisions we make. Be they good decisions or bad, these choices determine the path of our lives. But as adults, we've learned that if we misstep and fall on our faces, we still have a nanny to come make it all better. As a result, we don't pay all that much attention to where we're going. We have that safety net beneath us to catch us when we fall and prevent us from being hurt, so where's the incentive to be careful? There isn't one.

The government has been, and is continuing to, protect us as individuals, corporations, and state governments from the consequences of bad decisions. As a result, we're not learning to make good decisions. Health care coverage for everybody, doesn't that sound wonderful, but what about the people who made the conscious decision not to have insurance so they could have more spending money? Why should they be protected from that decision? People made the decision to spend way more money than they had or could pay off. If we protect them from the consequences of that decision will they start spending responsibly? Why would they when there's somebody there to bail them out.

The worst part is that the safety net, the federal government, is protecting itself from the consequences of it's actions by getting more money from the people they supposedly protect. So it's a cycle. We make bad decisions, get bailed out by a government making bad decisions, who gets bailed out by us.

Removing that safety net is one of the best things that could happen to us as a nation. If we aren't protected from overspending, and have to really pay attention to what we're doing, we do a better job of promoting the free market. If you're cautious about what you spend, and pay attention to getting the best deal for your dollar, then the companies have to compete to give you the best deal. When we can overspend and the government will come in and save us, we pay less attention.

The current process is to have the responsible people, monitoring their actions, and paying attention to where they're going, bear the cost of the irresponsible. Any parent will tell you that if you protect your child from the results of irresponsible decisions, they'll never learn to be responsible. That's what is happening right now. We're doing the entire country a disservice by protecting people from bad decisions. A disservice to the responsible by making them foot the bill, and a disservice to the irresponsible by not teaching them the lessons in responsibility they need.

We've bailed out bad companies and bad banks, and will now probably bail out a bad state government. California has behaved irresponsibly and instead of making them deal with the consequences of that, make some tough decisions, and learn from their mistake, we're going to bail them out with money from taxpayers in other states. Not good. Not good at all.

So I say remove the safety net and let the American people feel the consequences of their actions. Some people will have very hard lessons to learn, but we have to remember that they're in the positions they're in based on the decisions that they made. Some people HAVE to learn things the hard way and will never learn until they are faced with the hard consequences. I know. I am one of those people.