Self Reliance the key to strengthening Americans

 Self-reliance the key to strengthening Americans
     
In these days of deep division, of pitting one American against another in hatred, and of Presidential words of blame, the following words (in bold type) of William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister, are as true today as when he wrote them in 1943:
“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift”.   For example, our government actually required mortgage lenders to extend mortgages to those who could never repay them.     
“ You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer, nor help the poor man by destroying the rich”.  Corporations taxed at one of the highest rates in the world, and not given long-term regulations upon which they can depend, keep their profits and stop hiring and expanding. Some move jobs overseas or find legal ways around taxation, as has GE.  Unemployment increases. Libertarian Wayne Allen Root, Obama’s classmate at Columbia, describes the book Atlas Shrugged, wherein “the rich were going on strike to teach that civilization cannot survive when people are slaves to government; that without a productive class of innovative business owners willing to risk their own money and work 16-hour days, weekends and holidays, there are no jobs and no taxes to pay for government. If you punish the wealthy, the risk-takers, the innovators, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.”  Inciting class hatred does not lead to jobs, rational discussion or compromise.  It surely does not produce net government revenues.
“You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money”.  President Obama added more to our national debt in his first 19 months than all presidents from Washington through Reagan – combined.  He is spending at a rate more than 3 times that of President Bush.  Because of Baseline Budgeting mandates, funds for discretionary spending in government programs increase automatically by 8% per year with no regard to inflation.  The current baseline is enormously inflated because of Obama’s Stimulus and various new programs he signed into law in his first two years. In the recently passed bill, there are only cuts to the automatic 8% increase on this inflated spending, not on last year’s expenses. Our debt and deficits will continue to go higher. 
“ You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred”.  We must stop name-calling, limiting ourselves to debating issues.  We see in London what has transpired due to class hatred and an entitlement mentality.
“You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence”.  Welfare life begets continued generations of Americans on welfare, effectively telling many capable people they are not smart or good enough to take care of themselves. Welfare has become a way of life for millions.   A recent Presidential order in 3 states including Michigan, for instance, directs that if 40% of school children in a district qualify for free meals at school, then all of them shall get it –to “eliminate the stigma of getting a free lunch”, thereby putting more people on government programs – an effective agenda for bankrupting our government.

President Obama has appointed Cabinet members, heads of many government departments and panels, and Czars who are “progressive” thinkers displaying beliefs quite the opposite of Boetcker.  For decades our government has weakened the weak by not effectively expecting and assisting able citizens in becoming wage earners, permitting many to continue to receive government funds with no expectations of conduct to qualify for them.  Unwed Mothers in America are empowered by our laws to receive more government funds for each child they have, and many fathers abandon their children to enable this government income, for instance.  Government continues to redefine poverty so that higher incomes qualify as the poverty-stricken. For many decades our country’s anti-poverty spending has not lead to less poverty. 

Creative ideas and expectations are required to enable success.  Perhaps those who are able to should do volunteer work, promote schooling for their children, or learn to read to qualify for welfare, or as in Florida take a drug test to assure that our taxes are not simply supporting their habit.  Work ethics, self-assurance and the drive to excel is not promoted by permanently doing for some what they can and should do for themselves.