Taxing Christmas

The government is now taxing Christmas in order to pay for its wrecking of the economy.

In the pre-dawn darkness of a chilly LA morning, my day started off with a chuckle. A friend in the reforestation business sent me an email detailing the US Department of Agriculture’s new ‘Christmas Tree’ tax that was approved yesterday. I thought it was a joke. It wasn’t.

One can only laugh at the absurdity of the government getting involved in such a matter. But it’s happening more and more.

You see, the United States is on a one-way collision course with its financial judgment day; the country long ago passed the historical point of no return– the point at which it has to start borrowing money simply to pay interest on the money it has already borrowed.

Throughout history, countries that passed this point of no return soon defaulted on their debts, entered into extended periods of severe inflation, or both. This is nothing new– the idea of a government going bankrupt is practically as old as the concept of government itself.

The free lunch is over.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

The Protection Racket

If winning elections is our goal then we will lose. Our goal must be to change the game. We have had too many years of winning without change.

We have had too many years of the nanny state: The Ds want to be protected from Economic failure and the Rs want to be protected from Moral failure (generally). When in fact the state can do neither and can at best be neutral and at worst promote failure.

When the state protects out economics too much our economic muscles grow weak. When it protects our morals too much our moral muscles grow weak. Reliance on the state promotes weakness.

Variation

Ever notice how, when the question of "true socialism" comes up and you give examples of its failures the refrain is: that wasn't true socialism. True socialism has never been tried.

Yet there are many flavors of free market self government and most of them seem to work.

I wonder why that is?