Government Shutdown...Bring it!

It is cold and rainy upon the Stoa this morning, yet I am here, as always, providing my services for free. I'll settle into my warm bench, gather my robes, and place my stick upon my lap and tell you of a time when no one really thought about the Federal Government.

As little as a hundred years ago, not many people's lives were really affected by the Federal Government. They regulated trade between the States and oversees, they collected Import/Export taxes, ensured that the mail was delivered, the borders defended, and that patents and copyrights were maintained. It was not involved in Education, the Environment (though Teddy had begun to change that with National Parks), and it certainly did not try to regulate the calories you ate or the amount of CO2 you exhaled.

They worked for the good of the country, thus the name "civil servant". Their pay was low, but their contributions worthy. Now they are unionized parasites draining the life's blood from our country.

The Federal Register will run more than 100,000 pages long, annually, if ObamaCare and all the other regulations begin to expand into written rules and laws. All of that comes from Congress, the Federal Bureaucratic machine, and Presidential executive orders. Does this sound like an efficiently run government? Nope. Hell, the government's rules on the preparation of cabbage runs thousands and thousands of words. How long was the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution? Those set up a nation.

Today the States have become little more than administrative districts of the Central Government, though some governors are rebelling against the yoke. It may be too little too late. Since FDR the High Courts have been packed with Progressives who gun down legislative repeals that would return power back to the States. The 10th Amendment may be dead for all I know.

During the shut down non-essential personnel will be sent home. If they are non-essential then why am I paying their salaries today? Get rid of them. I wish the Congress would go on a furlough as well. With them gone they could not pass any more stupid laws. With them gone they may leave a penny or two for me to spend once in a while.

I'm sure we will continue to spend 8x more than what we take in on a monthly basis, shut down or no shut down. The ruinous spending path is fixed and despite some valiant efforts on the part of some Tea Party Republicans, I feel that it is too late. The heavy ball has begun to roll and it will have to find its new bottom.

The government that governs least governs best. We are a Republic. How about we make a show of governing like one.

Live well,

--Zavost