By Dale Weckbacher
Exodus 13:17-18
17 When Pharaoh
finally let the people go, God did not lead them on the road that runs through
Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest way from Egypt to the
Promised Land. God said, "If the people are faced with a battle, they
might change their minds and return to Egypt." 18 So God led them along a
route through the wilderness toward the Red Sea, and the Israelites left Egypt
like a marching army.
NLT
Most of us seek the easiest way to get something done. We own microwaves because it allows us to
cook our food faster and with less of a mess.
We try to find the quickest path to drive from point A to point B. However, God does not always choose the
easiest path for us in order to teach us and cause us to grow stronger (James
1:2-4). He also, as he did with the
Nation of Israel, steers us away from what may seem to us to be an easier way
because it is dangerous and leads to discouragement.
The easier path for our nation politically would be if we
could just simply wave a magic wand, making people suddenly realize our nation
is on a path of destruction. We face
deficits and debt that threaten the financial security of future
generations. Out of control regulations
with side effects that are far worse than the illness the regulation was
designed to fix. Obamacare, which
threatens the very liberty of people, placing them in jeopardy by giving
government bureaucrats control over the health care decisions of all citizens
and forcing them to buy something, they cannot afford, need, or want. However, God has chosen to lead our nation
down this path in order to teach us to depend upon Him and to value our
freedoms and liberties and not take them for granted.
Election year is upon us and we all know what that means,
more lies deception, and political posturing in an effort to get our vote. For those in office whose policies and
programs have failed, there will also be attempts to deceive us and deflect our
attention away from the true state of the nation. Therefore, let us take a moment to look at
the state of the health of our nation and provide a prescription that cures the
root cause of what is ailing our nation.
If we were to examine our nation much like a doctor examines
a patient we would have to conclude that even though the patient is alive, the
patient has some serious health issues that could be fatal if left
untreated. The symptoms the patient is
exhibiting are
1)
High
deficits – These high deficits are similar to a patient coming to the doctor
with a high fever. The fever is not the
problem but is symptomatic of some infection in the patient’s body. In the case of our country, the high deficits
are due to the infection of out of control spending, a growing entitlement
mentality, and a broken budget process.
2)
High debt – This is similar to a patient that
comes to the doctor and is obese. Even
though a patient comes to the doctor and is obese, they may be relatively
healthy. However, their obesity is like
a ticking time bomb that could go off someday.
At the moment, our nation’s debt is manageable but if it continues to
grow, especially at the pace it has been growing over the last five years, just
servicing the debt will become the largest expenditure in the nation’s
budget. When this day occurs, the nation
will have to make some tough decisions.
Do we severely cut defense and thus jeopardize the nation’s safety at a
time when the world is becoming increasingly dangerous. On the other hand, we could begin dismantling
the entitlement system that many have grown to depend upon for basic needs like
healthcare, food, housing, etc. This is
what they tried to do in Greece and Spain, resulting in riots, as people did
not know what to do without the assistance of some government program due to
their becoming overly dependent upon government entitlement programs. (1) (2) Of course, we could always just raise taxes
on the rich, which will result in rich business owners laying people off to
remain in business or even relocating their businesses to another country with
lower taxes thus eliminating almost all of their jobs in the United States.
3)
Out of control regulations – For several years I
have, like many of you reading this, been taking medication to treat high blood
pressure. As my body has built up a
resistance to many of the medications the doctor has prescribed, he has had to
change my medication. In one instance,
the doctor placed me on a medication that did lower my blood pressure but in
the process also lowered my heart rate.
After taking this medication for a while, I got up one morning and
almost passed out as I stood up. It
appeared that what the doctor had given me to lower my blood pressure had
lowered my heart rate to a point where I could not even stand up. Many of the regulations our government
imposes upon us may have been implemented with the intention of correcting some
wrong but as is the case with most government regulations, have grown to the
point where they are stifling our economy and economic growth. (3) These excessive regulations are also killing
innovation (4)
at a time when we desperately need innovation and growth to get America back to
work again.
4)
Obamacare – Arthritis is a very debilitating
disease affecting thousands of people across our nation. Initially the disease causes pain and
stiffness in the joints and is uncomfortable but manageable for the sufferer
with some pain medication. However, as
the disease progresses, the sufferer may become incapacitated and even confined
to a wheelchair. Obamacare, like
arthritis, starts out as some pain or stiffness that can be managed. For example, the first year the fine for not
having health insurance is only $95 or 1% of a person’s income, whichever is
larger. This is causing many to choose
to pay the fine, even though it is uncomfortable, in lieu of paying hundreds of
dollars a month for a health insurance policy they may never use because they
are young and healthy. However, each
year the fines are set to increase until it will no longer make financial sense
to opt for paying the fine. At this
point, much as arthritis debilitates an individual physically, these
individuals are debilitated financially as they will need to budget hundreds of
dollars a month to pay health insurance premiums.
The treatment for these symptoms is simple but as is often
the case with health treatments, painful.
Treating the deficit symptoms requires cutting spending and achieving a
balanced budget. We must also end
baseline budgeting and implement a zero based budgeting process for the federal
government. (5) This is the same budgetary process private
business use and will allow us to balance the Federal Budget by forcing
government agencies to begin each fiscal year at zero and force them to justify
the amount of money they will require each year for their operations. This may lead to the reduction or even
elimination of some government programs but this will only be because they were
unable to justify their need any longer.
Of course once the patient’s fever of deficits is broken it
will no longer be necessary for the patient to continue putting on the weight
of more debt. In fact, the patient may
even be able to begin losing weight by paying off some of its debt. This will eliminate potential future fiscal
health disasters for the nation and eliminate the need of strapping future
generations with excessive debt caused by past generations irresponsible
spending.
Our nation is overmedicated on regulations and needs to be
taken off many of them. I am not calling
for the total elimination of all regulations but in the process of the zero
based budgeting process, each of these regulatory agencies is required to
justify its existence. If during the
examination it is determined that they are no longer addressing the problem
they were created to address and instead are causing undesirable side effects
elsewhere, they will be eliminated.
Finally, we must not allow Obamacare to become an arthritis
that debilitates the nation by forcing people to spend hundreds of dollars they
work hard for and currently spend on other things. Granted, health insurance is beneficial when
one gets sick and needs it but forcing people to spend money on something they
do not want is not freedom but tyranny.
In addition, the money these people spend on health insurance comes out
of other parts of their budgets. This
means less spending on vacations, entertainment, or maybe even cause some to be
unable to make mortgage payments leading to the loss of their homes.
My prescription for restoring the nation’s health is
therefore simple. We must go on a
spending diet. Sadly, this may require a
twelve-step program as our nation’s government seems to be addicted to the
spending of taxpayer’s hard-earned money. We also must wean the nation off the useless
regulatory medications it is currently on so we can eliminate the many
undesirable side effects, such as the anemic economic growth our nation is
currently experiencing. In addition, we
must repeal the arthritis causing Obamacare before it totally debilitates the
nation.
Our nation is sick but not dead and I believe we still have
time to restore it back to health but we must begin now before it is too
late.
1. Gregory, Paul Roderick. Note to Krugman:
Greece proves Keynesian economics wrong. www.forbes.com. [Online]
Forbes, March 18, 2012. [Cited: June 7, 2012.]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2012/03/18/note-to-krugman-greece-proves-keynesian-economics-wrong/.
2. Huff, Ethan A.
Panic cash withdrawals in Spain drain banks; Greece-style economic implosion
now imminent. www.naturalnews.com. [Online] NaturalNews, September 24,
2012. [Cited: September 24, 2013.]
http://www.naturalnews.com/037298_spain_bank_runs_economic_collapse.html#ixzz27o53hac2.
3. Allison, John.
Red Tape Is Strangling the Recovery. www.usnews.com. [Online] U.S. News
and World Report, October 19, 2012. [Cited: March 18, 2014.]
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/10/19/lift-the-regulatory-burden-on-small-businesses.
4. Stewart, Luke A.
The Impact of Regulation on Innovation in the United States: A Cross-Industry
Literature Review*. www.iom.edu. [Online] Information Technology &
Innovation Foundation, June 2010. [Cited: March 28, 2014.]
http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2011/Health-IT/Commissioned-paper-Impact-of-Regulation-on-Innovation.pdf.
5. Americans for
Prosperity. Baseline Budgeting vs. Zero-based. americansforprosperity.com.
[Online] Americans for Prosperity, August 2012. [Cited: March 18, 2014.]
http://americansforprosperityfoundation.com/files/NtK_55_Baseline_Budgeting.pdf.
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