OPINION:
Many of us grew up accepting the premise that the actions and pronouncements of the government were truthful, legitimate and in our best interests. Unconstitutional limitations of our rights and regulation of our lives have been unquestioningly accepted only as a result of deception and the appearance of legitimacy. The deception is so pervasive and subtle that we have come to accept it as the natural order of things.
We are oblivious to the inherent corruption and immorality of government coercion, control and micromanagement of our lives. Among the many deceptions is the characterization of tax cuts as government expenditures. A tax cut is the act of government allowing citizens to keep more of the money they have earned. Calling it an expenditure implies that all wealth belongs to the government to dispose of as it wishes. Whose money is it, anyway?
Social Security and Medicare are now referred to as “entitlements,” even though recipients, along with their employers, have contributed to the fund their entire working lives. If you die before you are eligible to collect, do you ever wonder what happens to all that money?
An example of government doublespeak is the term “fair share.” It is an inconvenient truth that the top 10 percent of earners pay 70 percent of federal income taxes. Almost 50 percent of Americans pay no income taxes at all, and 25 percent of those receive welfare in the form of the earned income tax credit. What amount of taxation would accommodate the new paradigm of “fairness”? Evidently, the answer is: as much as the government wants.
ED KONECNIK
Flushing, N.Y.
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