The country or the government

Last night, we all heard the things that the President planned on doing to us to get the economy back on track. Raising our taxes, spreading those taxes around to people who didn’t do anything to earn them and typical Liberal (not at all “progressive”) patronage tricks. And we also heard a governor who sounded more like our president telling us we were the solution, not the problem (Washington Times link);

“To solve our current problems, Washington must lead. But the way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians,” Mr. Jindal said during his televised rebuttal. “The way to lead is by empowering you – the American people.”

“The strength of America is not found in our government,” he added. “It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens.”

It reminded me of another speech I heard once during another period of economic turmoil;

I have always believed that this land was placed here between the two great oceans by some divine plan. It was placed here to be found by a special kind of people–people who had a special love for freedom and who had the courage to uproot themselves and leave hearth and homeland and come to what in the beginning was the most undeveloped wilderness possible. We spoke a multitude of tongues–landed on this eastern shore and then went out over the mountains and the prairies and the deserts and the far Western mountains of the Pacific, building cities and towns and farms and schools and churches.

If wind, water or fire destroyed them, we built them again. And in so doing at the same time we built a new breed of human called an American–a proud, an independent and a most compassionate individual for the most part. Two hundred years ago Tom Paine, when the thirteen tiny colonies were trying to become a nation, said we have it in our power to begin the world over again. . . . Together we can begin the world over again. We can meet our destiny and that destiny can build a land here that will be for all mankind a shining city on a hill. I think we ought to get at it.

Compare that to;

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.

Ronald Reagan told us that the answer to our problems lays in our shared heritage and experiences, Obama, on the other hand, said the solution is in his government programs – all liberal patronage purchasing programs. Which makes more sense to you?

Category: Politics