The Power of The Little d
Lauri Anne Jacobs
In contemplating our current state of affairs, and the fact that we have come to the end of our tax season it has made me wonder as a nongovernmental, self-employed taxpayer am I being served by the public sector or am I serving the public sector? April 9 is Tax Freedom Day. That is the date which the average American has worked long enough to pay all tax obligations – local, state and federal. To put that in perspective, how would you like to wake up on January 1st and every dime you make goes to pay all these taxes before you can get paid yourself? The government is supposed to serve the people, but when it gets too big, like it is now, the government ends up being served by the people. That little d on the end of one word completely changed everything.
In 1 Samuel, chapter 8 in the Bible, the people were clamoring for a human king to rule over them so they could be like other nations. Samuel warned them that the king would take more from them than they would get in return. He warned them that a king would draft their sons into military service, take their land, take a tenth of their production (we wish that is all they would take now) etc. Even some of these are relevant today. They rejected Samuel’s words of warning from God and the Lord would not hear them in that day.
How did we transition as taxpayers from being served by our government to serving our government? It is the nature of bureaucracy to want to grow itself. People are hired to work, then people are hired to do their work. Congress by law creates federal departments, which in turn become a constantly growing department. This principle goes all the way down to the local level. The shelf life of many government employees is 20 years, whereas those who paid into Social Security for their retirement have to work to 67 to receive full benefit. The irony of it is those who make the laws governing Social Security that benefit from an early retirement age are constantly wanting to raise the age of retirement of Social Security recipients. You never hear them say let’s raise the retirement age of the federal workforce.
The second reason that we have an ever-growing public sector partly falls on the shoulders of the private sector. There is always some special interest group coming before boards that sets the budget for governmental operation. These special interest groups are wanting special favors for a few to be paid for by all. On the local level, it generally involves but not limited to recreation. Do we need government? Yes, we do, but the real question is how much government do we need? Sound government is a necessity for a peaceful safe society. We must have a strong military, local law enforcement, firefighters, hospitals, healthcare, education, and a good infrastructure. We need this in the amount that would serve us and not be served by us. There is that little d.
