"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years."

This quote is attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler but it cannot be verified. However, the statement has an important message, "...the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury..." Isn't this what we have today? The Democratic candidates are always promising to take money from the evil rich people and use it to give benefits to the poor. That is basically what socialism is all about.

This poses two problems. The first problem is that most people do not consider themselves to be rich. So when they hear the politicians say they are going to tax the rich we stand up and cheer. Most people think of the rich as the some multi-millionaire sitting in the country club. But when it comes to taxation, the rich are really the middle to upper middle class. So in the end, we are voting to increase our own taxes.

The second problem is that the more benefits that the government gives out, the fewer incentives there are for people to work. Some people find that they can make more income and have a higher standard of living by being on welfare than they can if they were working. So you have more and more people that are capable of working but decide that there is no benefit for them to go to work. They prefer to stay unemployed and live of the public coffers. These people will always vote for the person who promises them more benefits. As more and more people come to rely on government programs, the tax on the working populations increases. This reduces the spending power of the working population as they struggle to stretch their budgets under an increasing tax burden; which creates more of a need for even the middle class to seek government assistance. Productivity declines, the skills of the workforce decline, and the ability for companies to compete with foreign competitors declines, and finally the economy stagnates and loses much of the dynamics that can help create new industries and new jobs.

But the most insidious thing is the role that the government plays in promoting this dependency. You see as long as you are dependent on the government, you will have little choice but to support the party that is giving out the benefits. The government has no incentive to help reverse the situation. Their goal is to stay in power and the more dependent you are on them, the more secure their position is. That is until the whole system collapses under its own weight.

- Thomas Paine 2

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