Less government means less waste

The answer to the plea of a recent letter writer, who is also President of Kendall County Democratic Women, to pass Obama’s recent jobs bill can be found in Hamilton’s Federalist #51: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Can the executive branch control itself? Recent history would indicate a resounding no.

I live in Kane County. Virtually every road within several miles of my house has been repaved courtesy of Obama’s stimulus bill. The roads could have gone a lot longer before being resurfaced.

Let’s suppose you or I owned the road: we would have patched here, sealed here and gone another five years or so before spending millions. Those who own an asphalt driveway can probably relate. Do I patch and seal coat ... or do I pick up the phone and get a new driveway?

So government spends millions on something that doesn’t need to be fixed, adds to the national debt and incurs interest at taxpayer expense on this new debt.

When you consider the possibility that this unnecessary spending was union payoff, you begin to see the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and their desire to keep government as small as possible. By simply gutting government and letting We The People keep our property, all this mischief ends. There is simply no profit motive for unsavory characters to get involved in government, if government is kept to an absolute minimum.

Jeff Lonigro

St. Charles