The purpose of the government is to provide services for "We the people..."

[RC]

The purpose of the government is to provide services for "We the people...". From the Federal level down to the local level. Services such as clean water, law enforcement/protection, Fire protection, public education, Building and maintaining public roads and streets (including snow removal), and in most countries Universal Health Care. And a whole host of other services most people never even think of, that make our lives healthier, safer and easier.
Taxes pay for these services. When everyone pays for their fair share, we all benefit from the services government provides.
When government is starved of operating funds because of excessive tax cuts, especially tax cuts for those most able to pay, as we have now, those most in need are hit disproportionally harder.

I can imagined Deb Kiel (R-MN) http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/224845/ is one of those fortunate people that are not wanting for material things. Unlike the people she is hurting by her myopic reduction of the services she does not use or need. Cuts that leave her with more at the expense of the rest of us that depend on those government services.

Local government have very few options for operating funds. The property tax in most cases is the only source of operating funds allowed by statute.
Up until the year of 2000 or so, the States received funds back from the Federal level, which redistributed them down to the county and local level. Under the Bush Administration that source pretty well dried up. The states and local levels had no choice but to raise the taxes that they could.
The real problem now is not that the government spends too much, the problem is that those most able to afford to, do not pay their fair share, so government can provide the statute mandated services in the first place!

Governments from the Federal level down to the local level are mandated by law to provide certain services. They have been starved for so long they cannot provide those services any longer. But cutting these services for the people is counter productive. It makes things worse. Those same Well-To-Do people that benefit the most from the tax cuts, are also acting to ship our Living-Wage-Jobs over seas, resulting in high unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcies, lack of basic health care, etc., which in turn create more people that are in need of the services that government is mandated to provide for "We the people...", but now cannot because of the lack of proper operating funds.

The real answer it to RAISE taxes on those that can most afford it, not cut services even more for those that need those services the most. Get our Living-Wage-Jobs back into this country and reverse the last 12 years of the Republican orchestrated swan dive into 3rd world status for the United States.

Another large source of funds is going to funding our deadly aggression against other countries, under the guise of "Fighting Terrorism". We are the world worst terrorist country. Just ask the people in the Middle East.
That money could be better spend rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure in this country. Providing hundreds of thousands to Living-Wage-Jobs, that will get this country out of the Bush Administration caused recession.

Our Constitution mandates providing for the general welfare of the "We the people..."
It is time our government gets back to adhering to the wording and meaning behind those words in our Constitution. The alternative is the destruction of the United States as a country.

A alternative the Middle East would be grateful for, because we would have to get out of their countries and leave them alone, as we could no longer afford to make new terrorist to justify prolonging the war on terrorism.

And that would be the best Christmas present we could give them.
Merry Christmas.

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Government isn't a "them" or "they".

It's us. We maintain a government to provide for domestic order, justice and to maximize our ability find happiness.

The fact that out government isn't providing for us isn't a problem of government, so much as it's a problem of us. We think that we must defer to experts who are working for profit because we distrust our ability to do it ourselves.