Americans are overtaxed, period

Clinton Eyes Billions in New Spending

Almost every day since Christmas, the Clinton White House has leaked a new element of the President's post-balanced-budget-deal plan to spend American taxpayers into oblivion. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans have been almost mute in response.

Clinton's threatened spending spree allegedly has been inspired by the speculation that future economic growth in the as-yet unvanquished U.S. private sector may float the government out of its three-decade spell of deficit spending as early as next year.

The big question now being debated by Washington regulars is how to "spend" the surplus.

Excuse us, but the government has no right to "spend" any surplus. That money belongs to "we, the people." The government already confiscates and squanders far too much of American wealth, and it is time for conservatives to get back to the basic point of conservatism: We believe in strictly limited constitutional government, and a free-market economy based on individual enterprise and private property rights.

Balancing the budget, if it is achieved, will be a fine thing. But it pales as an accomplishment next to the far more important goal of chopping the federal government back down to constitutional proportions and giving back to U.S. taxpayers the money now so unjustly taken from them by the undeserving political class in Washington, D.C.

In just the last two weeks, Clinton has proposed:

* $21.7-billion federal "child care" initiative. * $20-$35-billion supplement to the IMF. * $2-billion food stamp give away to immigrants. * An additional $146 million annually for AIDS research. * A $48-million annual increase in the Peace Corps. * An annual $ 15 million to research health-care "quality."

At the same time he has insisted he will not seek a tax cut. Since Clinton entered the White House in 1992, the tax burden on Americans has steadily increased. According to calculations by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day, the day in the year "when the average American will have earned enough money to pay the taxes levied by Uncle Sam and his counterparts at the state and local level," did not come until May 9, 1997. That was the latest date ever, signifying the heaviest tax burden in history on American workers.

This tax burden is immoral-driving mothers of young children into the workforce, oppressing the traditional family with confiscatory levies, depriving retirees of hard-earned pensions, crushing the incentive for future enterprise.

The only way to permanently reduce this burden is not only to reject all of Clinton's new spending proposals, but also to dismantle government programs already long in existence. Shutting down government agencies ought to be the prime order of business in the coming session of Congress.

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jan 16, 1998
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