Very Interesting

Consider the following statements:

The best way for the State to become less burdensome on taxpayers is to reduce dependency on it.

Reducing dependency should be a big part of the debate every time the Budget comes around. Instead, the debate is invariably dominated by what government handouts should be spared the knife or even meaningful reform.

Taxpayers never complain as loudly as the various interest groups who have become dependent on this or that welfare benefit

No one ever wants to cut anything. The instinct is always to spend more, to introduce some new benefit at the taxpayers' expense.

Politicians know that the single best way to buy votes is to fight cuts to benefits and, when they can, increase current benefits and introduce new ones.

This is exactly what helped get this country into its present mess. That and artificially inflating the property bubble. The last government, in common with other governments overseas, encouraged banks to lend and lend in order to inflate the economy, so they could raise more tax revenue, spend more and get into office again.

The pressure to grow the State is still enormous. Politicians love lashing out the money. It's easy to condemn anyone who isn't so fond of benefits as 'hard-hearted'. It's the most fantastic trick ever; at one and the same time you can spend other people's money and get to call yourself 'compassionate'.

The entire instinct in politics is to regard people who have private health coverage and private pensions and savings as 'rich'. They are there purely to be taxed and must be made to feel guilty that they have these things. How dare they?

State policy has to be aimed at reducing dependency, not increasing it. We cannot afford the State we have and therefore only those who must be dependent on it should be dependent on it.

You might be surprised

The excerpts above, and I've omitted a paragraph or two, and a word here and there so as to not give it away, came not from American news media or opinion but from the Irish Independent, Ireland's largest selling daily newspaper, not from an American columnist or commentator, but David Quinn, an Irish columnist.

The article is not talking about the American government but the Irish one, the commonality was striking.

Okay, so we're a little upside down today.

 Slainte!