That which governs best governs least.
Right on cue...
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28012760
and... http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy-p...News+-+Text%29
"Government MANAGEMENT of the economy"......The Commerce Department said on Wednesday gross domestic product fell at a 2.9 percent annual rate, the economy's worst performance in five years, instead of the 1.0 percent pace it had reported last month.
While the economy's woes have been largely blamed on an unusually cold winter, the magnitude of the revisions suggest other factors at play beyond the weather. Growth has now been revised down by a total of 3.0 percentage points since the government's first estimate was published in April, which had the economy expanding at a 0.1 percent rate.
The difference between the second and third estimates was the largest on records going back to 1976, the Commerce Department said.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
I may not know what I am talking about, but I will grant you that, in it's original form and not how it is being administered now, Social Security may have been successful, IF Congress hadn't continually stolen from the fund. But that just shows that the .gov can't touch anything without screwing it up.
JV, I should have chosen a different way of saying that. I am not trying to tell people what they can and can't do. I just have a way of saying things and it was not intentional. I should have said "...but I think it's unfair to trash a gov't program just because you disagree with it politically."
Communication is the hardest thing we do as humans, IMHO. I apologize if it upset anyone.
Cody
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state;
1) - There is no such thing as national bankruptcy, in a place where free market economy exists - That is not a real thing. GM could have failed as easily as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
2) NIH and CDC only conduct research at institutions in conjunction with major research institutions. For the most part, NIH provides research funding to scientists, who are NOT government employees and then NIH and CDC ask those scientists to release their results and everyone gives those agencies the credit for the work, as opposed to the scientists that actually did it. The Government is good at taking credit for things it doesn't do...But when you take NIH money you know this is happening. I have personally work on NIH-funded grants. This is how this system works.
3) A system that is financially bankrupt that I pay into every month where I will not see a dime of it returned. I'm going to sound like a jerk here but...Social Security is a not a retirement program. A whole generation of people treated it like that, because the government lied to them, and the end result is a poorly managed fund which citizens who are currently paying into will never get their money back from it.
4) The interstate highway system - Built by STATES using Federal dollars - and paid for courtesy of corruption and political votes. And this is arguably the most successful of the ventures you listed.
5) The FDA only performs small amounts of testing. Instead, they require patent/copyright holders to submit their product for testing to a review panel that is approved by the FDA. They then use those results to determine the safety of a product. The standards were developed by private doctors and health professionals and provided to the FDA, not the other way around.
-Rob
I'd heard this quote before, but was struggling with the wording...
Clarification: That government is best which governs least.
BTW... 1,000,000%
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C.S. Lewis
In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
The problem is the belief in government, like it is some kind of wonderful being that is there to make everything better. This is very dangerous. LL touched on this with his simple post.
You can get into the political side of it but the reality is that we don't really know the people that we vote for, whether they have a D or an R in front of their name. The huge amount of money that they take out of my paycheck each year to pay for their pet programs is staggering and they don't have much to show for it.
How is it that there are states with more people on welfare than are earning a living? That is one that boggles my mind.
-Seconds Count. Misses Don't-
Gov't had plans to rape Social Security and screw the people the day it was passed. The gov't retained ownership of accounts and set the age to retire about 4 years past life expectancy.