Government Cheese

I’ve had three different careers in my life. I’ve worked for government and private companies, big and small. I’ve been comfortable and I’ve been dirt poor. But, I’ve always refused to take a government handout.

When I was dirt poor, I ran a small business and did quite well at one time, but suffered an economic downturn in the early 1990s. I ended up making less than I needed to keep the business, my apartment, and buy food. Not a good feeling. In fact, I was eligible for food stamps, government business loans, and other help.

I never took anything, because I always feared the strings that came with that aid. I managed to close the business and sell the small assets I had. I kept body and soul together and soon found work elsewhere. If I’d truly faced starvation, I probably would’ve have taken food stamps and I can’t blame any one for taking them or unemployment insurance. That said, government largess is dangerous.

Taking government cheese becomes a way of life and government seems all too glad to help a person maintain that way of life. A person’s job, in effect, becomes going down to the local food stamp, TANF, Section 8 housing, or Social Security office to fill out paperwork and meet caseworkers.

I’ve seen web comments and posts that wondered if maybe Obama et. al. wants us all to take government cheese. If we do, we can be made tractable. We can be made to surrender gun rights to live in government housing. We can give up privacy for government health care. We can continue to vote in those who grant us such largess. Something to say for this conspiracy theory.

The current administration has been going on a corporate welfare binge to beat all binges. We’ve bailed out banks, auto companies, insurers, and more. Now, the gloves have come off and this administration is showing it wants control. They ordered GM to fire its Chief Executive Officer.

Where in the name of George Washington does the Constitution say that a president can fire a private citizen? What in anything Thomas Jefferson ever wrote or even read gives Obama the power to tell Chrysler that is has to merge with FIAT (same link)?

Let’s face it; this economic collapse was a way for this administration to seize unprecedented power by first giving out billions of our dollars and now pulling the strings. They built on the power that Bush added to the Executive Office and we are now facing a leviathan that could remake the country into its own image.

Beware of government cheese.