Reagan said it best "Government isn't the solution, government is the problem". It was our Supreme Court that took prayer and bible reading out of schools. When I was in school, there was a Jewish girl, so when it was her turn to read, she always read out of the Old Testiment. Jews weren't offended by prayer and bible reading. I lived in Dearborn, Michigan from 1st to 3rd grade, lived next door to some Muslims from Syria. They weren't offended by public school with prayer and bible reading. It was the athiests who had it removed. A minority of people, and arrangements could have been made for them to be excluded.
Government caused the welfare problem with LBJ's "Great Society". Government caused the banking problem, government is spending too much money. The governments welfare solution created the loss of the work ethic. By changing the banking rules in 1998, they created the mortgage bubble.
Government can build roads, bridges, canals, rockets, jets, etc. These are all engineering problems with concrete solutions. Government can't fix people. This was left up to the chruches and synagogs and to charitys. By usurping the religious solutions to human problems, they made the problems worse.
Government by having free trade agreements without first seeing if it was "fair trade", they gutted our manufacturing industry.
Government by mandates from various departments, created the food crisis we are about to experience from their mandate of ethynol blended gasoline. Also paying farmers NOT to grow food, instead of buying up the surplus for storage for future shortages.
Government by not allowing drilling offshore and onshore in various places, created the fuel shortage.
Government by EPA regulations haven't allowed any new refineries since the 70's.
Government by regulations haven't allowed any new nuclear power plants except one since the 70's.
The list goes on and on.
Governments cannot change the human heart. Education is free through high school, and free with Pell Grants to poor students. The poor drop out of school, live on welfare, and do drugs, because anything free isn't worth anything. Education takes study, which is sometimes hard work. The work ethic is gone.
Government has pushed and pushed college education and neglected trades. Right now, there is a shortage of pipeline welders. Most can make between $50 and $90 an hour here in Alabama, but they have to travel around the state to various locations for welding. All the welders that my contractors use are over 50. Young guys think welding is too demeaning or too dirty.
Germany isn't as hurt by this recession as much as us. They have emphasised trades with about 50% of their people having a trade education of 2 years after high school. Only about 10% of Germans have a college degree while 20% of Americans do. They have about 3% high school dropouts. Ours is much higher. Germany hasn't gutted their manufacturing base and their GDP is higher than all other European countries, including Russia. They are 4th in the world yet only have 85 million people.
We have to start changing our government, first by not voting for Democrats and liberal Republicans. Those of you who are union members, if we don't get the government out of our lives, being in the union won't make a difference, all of us fall. America is going bankrupt. The magic number is $20 trillion in debt, we are at $16. Either hyperinflation is coming, or about 20 years of what we have now, or the banks and foreign countries will not bankroll our debt, and everything will be cut, welfare, social security, military, everything. All of it looks bad, UNLESS we start CUTTING stuff NOW, and get the government OUT of our lives, and let the private economy flourish. Growing the economy grows the tax base to pay for things.
Off my soapbox.
