MINOT, NORTH DAKOTA — One reason NOT to shut down the government is that most businesses depend on obtaining government permission to operate. When the government shuts down, it restricts commercial activity by not providing ongoing permissions and permits.
Most businesses follow the law — regardless of how irrational, irresponsible, and overbearing it may be. The political class understands that a shutdown would punish businesses. This punishment is how the government manipulates citizens to give the government what it wants so our lives can proceed in a normal manner. Few people understand the massive bureaucracy that burdens business operations and significantly increases the cost of the goods and services we use.
Over the past 60 years, virtually every activity of virtually every business has become bound up in bureaucratic red tape, permissions, permits, and the time to secure endless approvals. Businesses spend huge amounts of time and money complying with regulations and laws and waiting for bureaucrats to process, inspect, approve, oversee, survey, audit, and comb through their activities. We are told that we are protected, safe, and should be happy when the government is functioning. When the government ceases to function, the story goes, we are unprotected and unsafe.
The government mandates that businesses meets its demands and comply with its requirements. These same business people collect taxes for their government sponsors. They send in the money, fill out more forms, and submit themselves to invasive and intense audits to prove that they have properly collected the taxes from their customers and given the funds to the unthankful political class. The vast majority of what is collected is given to those who have no legitimate right to it. Understanding this process should make it clear why shutting down the government interrupts our normal lifestyle. |
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Shutting down the government may be the ONLY way to awaken Americans to the disgusting and intentional fraud the political class is perpetrating against them. |
Sixty years ago, the governmental burdens on business were miniscule compared to what is imposed today. Product safety and services were not a serious concern for either businesses or their customers. The ratio of government employees to private sector employees was far lower. Our standard of living was higher, and most people worked and supported themselves. Today, the majority lives off the income confiscated from those who do.
The number of those who work in America is shrinking. Fewer and fewer Americans are willing or able to run the gauntlet of bureaucrat harassment and slurs in order to enter and remain in business.
Those who work and earn are targets. Since 2009, the political class has identified the "rich" as responsible for the woes of the nation; "the rich are not paying their fair share" is the ceaseless mantra.
The ascendancy of public sector unions in the 1970s and the rise of the professional political class has accelerated America's dramatic decline. The actual cost of government is double our tax burden. What is not paid for with taxes is borrowed.
The scheme of the political class is a ponzi game for which every living American, as well as countless millions not yet born, will pay. Either the debts will be paid, or America will collapse as has every other nation that has run this scheme against its people.
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Shutting down our dysfunctional government, moving it aside, and rebuilding from the ground up is our only hope. Maintaining the status quo is not an acceptable option. |
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Shutting down the government may be the ONLY way to awaken Americans to the disgusting and intentional fraud the political class is perpetrating against them. The game sets one group against another — rich against poor, minority against majority, liberal against conservative. In the chaos, America is destroyed. |
Shutting down our dysfunctional government, moving it aside, and rebuilding from the ground up is our only hope. Maintaining the status quo is not an acceptable option. The sooner we start taking our medicine, the more likely we are to overcome 60 years of the cancerous growth of government.
A Voice from Fly-Over
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A Voice from Fly-Over Country is copyright © 2013
by Robert L. Hale and the Fitzgerald
Griffin Foundation.
All rights reserved.
Robert L. Hale received his J.D. in law from Gonzaga University Law
School in Spokane, Washington. He is founder and director of a non-profit
public interest law firm. For more than three decades he has been involved
in drafting proposed laws and counseling elected officials in ways
to remove burdensome and unnecessary rules and regulations.
See a complete biographical sketch.
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