First, let me apologize to my readers and Greene Publishing for missing last week’s deadline. It doesn’t happen often; chalk it up to a hectic holiday period. Second, let me wish each of you a joyous day and season of Epiphany where we celebrate the arrival of the wise men to honor the birth of Jesus. Many wonderful traditions of this time in the Christian calendar flow from this important recorded event.
There is a lot of talk in the popular culture about the new Star Wars movie. I haven’t seen it but the reviews are good and judging from box office receipts, the public likes it too. This got me to thinking about the original trilogy of movies that began Star Wars four decades ago. The third movie, “Return of the Jedi,” introduced us to the villain Jabba the Hutt.
Jabba was a slug (literally) and crime lord. He was huge (big as a hut), immobile and corrupt. As I recall, he smoked from a water pipe which is another thing that doesn’t endear his character to me.
Jabba the Hutt reminds me of Washington D.C., and more generally, of big government run amuck – huge, immobile and corrupt. Over time, it just gets larger, more intrusive, more bloated. There seems to be no solution to this out-of-control situation. While the nation struggles to pull itself out of the 2008 recession, Washington and its surrounding suburbs just expand, siphoning off more and more taxpayer money to support their profligate ways.
Possibly with government, we have created perpetual motion. The cycle is never-ending: the money goes to Washington; the bureaucracy siphons off about 30 percent ‘carrying charge;’ the government expands to justify the larger budget; nothing is deleted when a program outlives its’ usefulness; redundancy and waste is rampant. Sorry to paint such a gloomy picture, but that’s the way I see it.
No matter which party is in charge, the situation doesn’t ever seem to change. Democrats are the party of big government, so they make no bones about their intentions – introduce new programs and expand regulations to encroach on our lives. Never ask the questions: 1) is this an appropriate role for government, and 2) can we afford it? Instead the rule is: pass the law; devise the regulation; figure out how to pay for it later.
Republicans say they are the party of smaller government, but about the best we can hope from them is to slow the change, never real reductions in size or expanse. I think this is partly the reason to explain the “Trump phenomena” of the current election cycle – he is appealing to disaffected voters who are sick and tired of business-as-usual from the Washington political class.
From my vantage point, I see governments at all levels, but especially the federal government, growing and in the process, intruding into our lives more and more. There is a situation now in southeastern Oregon, a standoff between local ranchers and the Feds. The basis of the argument is overgrazing rights. When you get to the western states, the federal government is by far the biggest landowner. In Nevada, a huge state, Bureau of Land Management, is the owner of more than 90 percent of the entire land mass. And by and large, BLM is a terrible land manager.
We are fortunate to live east of the Mississippi River where most of the land is in private hands and much better managed than government owned property. That is one of the reasons why I opposed the sales tax amendment to Florida’s constitution that would allow the state government to acquire more land. Not only do they poorly manage what they currently have, it is terribly costly and they constantly clamor for more money.
Why should we permit the state to acquire more property when they have insufficient funds to manage what is currently on the books? I think the legislature is doing the right thing by using the money generated by the added sales tax to better manage the current inventory. Also, do we really want to see our Ad Valorem tax that county governments depend upon so heavily reduced when the state acquires more property? You do realize that the government land comes off the tax role, don’t you?
As I recall, Jabba the Hutt meets a welcome and untimely end in the third Star Wars movie. Can we expect the same for big government? I’m pretty pessimistic about the situation. The only route I can see is to reduce the federal budget, but since so much of the budget is non-discretionary entitlement, the effect of real budget cuts is diminished. If conservatives and libertarians can succeed in cutting the budget, then the bureaucrats will be forced to prioritize. That’s the only glimmer of hope I see to whittling Jabba down to size.