[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]
Mrs. Dunphy and I have lately been toting up our annual obligations to the public fisc, and preparing to write our check for same. It has been a discouraging experience, to understate the matter considerably, as we ponder our contribution to the trillions of dollars soon to be gushing out of great chutes at the White House and the U.S. Capitol, then to be cast hither and yon across the countryside. As best we can discern, not one of those trillions of dollars will find its way into the Dunphy coffers. And by the way, until a few months ago, had you ever heard the word “trillion” tossed about the way it’s been lately? For the innumerate, a trillion is a thousand billions, and a billion is a thousand millions. We’re talking Real Dough here.
But I digress.
Mrs. Dunphy and I are not wealthy, but our balance sheet is in good order as we have been frugal with the money we have. We currently rent, but have been considering buying a home as we observe the downward trend in real estate prices here in Southern California and elsewhere. This downward trend is in large part due to the fact that people who have lived less frugally than we have are losing their homes to foreclosure. But today we are informed that President Obama will soon open up another spigot and bequeath untold billions of dollars on those very people, with the net effect being that the tax dollars of those, such as Mrs. Dunphy and myself, who have made prudent financial decisions will be used to subsidize those who have not and, even more insultingly, artificially prop up the real estate market and thereby discourage our purchase of a home.
With this in mind, I wish to point out a few things to those fortunates being stimulated with other people’s money:
1. The government has no money but that which it extracts from its citizens through taxation under pain of imprisonment.
2. The taking of that money from those who have earned it and then distributing it to those who have not is considered to be, in a different context, robbery.
3. People who are immunized from the consequences of imprudent decisions are very likely to continue making them. And, when their imprudence is once again revealed, they are just as likely to extend the greedy hand once more in expectation of further assistance from their fellow citizens.
It is Mrs. Dunphy’s and my misfortune to live in an area represented at all levels of government by liberals, so we would waste neither the time nor effort to petition any of them with our grievances. But my question, for anyone who’d care to answer, is this: Is there anyone in Washington willing to speak for those of us who are footing the bill for all this blessed stimulation but are left unstimulated ourselves?
–Jack Dunphy