Cinncinatus on Reducing Foreign Aid

It is no secret that, in order to redirect the mob from their four years of recession trouble, the establishment has taken to blaming Government employees at all levels for the nation's economic problems. From my experience,  the most zealous supporters of Chris Christie of NJ, etc., who extol the virtues of going after public-sector workers' salaries and pensions, tend come from the groups of people who made the most money during the Halycon days of the 90s and early 2000s. Those who complain the most tend to be the ones who would never have taken a government job in the first place because it did not pay enough, but now that there is a recession, the same are all-too-willing to be worked up into a frenzy by elected officials who know that "divide and conquer" is the easiest way to take the heat off of themselves. Get the people at each other's throats and you have quelled the anger for a while.

When I was working three jobs (Our salaries are low to start) in the early 90s and driving beat-ups cars that I prayed would not break down due to the costs of replacement parts (I did much of the work myself), many people we knew were driving new (Often company) cars and had all kinds of money to spend. I never felt any jealousy for them and only asked that they extend the same courtesy to us now. Who knows? If we get hit with any appreciable inflation, my pension will not be worth much anyway.

On a more cynical note, I also found that those who have been the most vocal about public employees salaries and pensions were mostly the same ones who, after 911, could not say "Thank You" often enough for what we did (I recently retired from Law enforcement and was, among other things, a K9 handler, Police Bomb Technician, etc.). Although I was appreciative for these sentiments, I would note that no thanks were needed since, as far as I was concerned, I was compensated fairly well for and liked what I did. (It is ironic how we went from being thanked to being targets of their frustration) I tend to hold that the military guys, being deployed in far more dangerous places for long periods of time and those who do the jobs for free, like volunteer firefighters, deserve thanks more than do full-time workers.

Cinncinatus is a new contributor. The following is his second post. At the bottom is a link to a site where you will see how overwhelming our foreign aid burden is and many of the problems that are associated with it.

Cincinnatus 

Commentary to Senator Akaka open letter in the Federal Times dated 18 March 2012 

http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20120318/ADOP06/203180305

If Senator Daniel K. Akaka (Hawaii) was serious in the following article he would have identified where the cuts should come from to pay for the 10 months of unemployment coverage. There are a great deal of programs that the federal government has taken on over the last century which under our constitution are the responsibility of the States and not the Federal Government. This is where we need to cut to spare the hard working federal employees. I have never met a progressive/liberal that has ever wanted the federal government to comply with the Constitution when it relates to the governmental social engineering programs, but yet they would have no hesitation to cut and, in some case, eliminate those programs that are mandated by our Constitution to be performed by the Federal Government.

Taxes that are used to fund those functions that are enumerated by our constitution on the federal government are fees for services rendered (i.e. enforcement of US Law, National Defense, etc.) to the citizens. Taxes that are used to redistribute the fruits of one's labors are simply another form of slavery. Throughout human history the more economic resources that government takes away from its citizens that earn it the less liberty all citizens have and the more imposing and demanding government becomes.

I will suggest an area that Senator Akaka could consider cutting (some would say totally eliminate) to protect the hard working middle class Federal worker (as well as the tax payers); that is US Foreign aid. 

The following link details where the foreign aid from the Federal Government is going to: 

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/politics/us-foreign-aid.htm

Note from Pleiststarchos - I knew that our foreign aid was bad, but I had no idea how bad it really was until I looked at the numbers. Those who advocate isolationism cannot be totally off the mark - the money we throw around could go a long way to fixing Social Security, energy independence, infrastructure repairs, health care for the poor, you name it. When our debt reaches the tipping point, even these massive amounts of cash may not be of help anyway.