GOV 101

Today I’m playing the role of the bad magician who gives away the secret to probably the biggest illusion in human history, Government.

Most of us know what’s really going on but it’s a problem we can’t articulate. Conspiracy theorists and paranoids in general continue to voice hatred and fear of the government, and people are still lining up at the polls every election season. These indicators serve as a barometer that the government still appears to have teeth and influence with the public. It’s well beyond time to stop this illusion.

Year after year, president after president, governor after governor, nothing changes. Everyone is wondering why they have to scrimp and scrape their way through life along the precipice of life while a few people or entities are dolling out five and six figure salaries and pensions.

One key element is that government has become a tool of industry. Government on its own merit is merely a decoration behind which a handful of bankers and other industrial oligarchs hide and push buttons like the Wizard of Oz.

Legislation, without fail, distorts from its original intent and public promise, into a cash cow for an industry special interest group, or distorts into a tax-funded bureaucracy to be populated by political patrons and their cronies, who then take revolving doors into industries that benefit from that bureaucracy.

Another point of evidence is the disparity of priorities that local state and federal governments have regarding taxes.

Municipal, State and Federal budgets rely on taxes to stay afloat, but businesses treat employees as an expense they try to keep as low as possible or cut entirely, not realizing that by doing so, businesses are reducing the volume of tax contributors, causing governments to increase the tax rate.

In other words, there are less people able to contribute taxes, so the tax rate is increased to compensate. There are more people dependent on social programs that require tax expenditures because they are unemployed.

Municipalities that depend on sales taxes are doomed unless they do away with sales tax and shift to only an income tax.

If government was interested enough to increase the volume of tax contributions (increasing the number of people who contribute more to taxes) rather than increasing the tax rate, governments would reform education so individuals could be self-sufficient instead of learning to become dependent on an employer in the future.

This is bad for business because it would inject too many competitors into the marketplace. Education has long been dampened and controlled by dysfunctional mandates and curriculum to maintain a certain level of control in the marketplace.

So, government served its purpose as a distraction for terrorists and mentally unstable gunmen long enough. You can stop giving government credit for anything and treat it like the tool that it is. Start looking behind the curtain folks.