Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Two quotes on the budget dilemma
The dilemma faced in the California budget (and the Federal one too) was summarized by a French economist of the 18th Century. "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury." But then Will Rogers also cautioned "Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even. "
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2 comments:
I've been saying this for a long time as it is already the case in California. It seems every time you turn around some politician has a new proposal to "invest" our money in some new project to buy votes from a select few.
John Edwards (the philanderer) was correct that there are two Americas, only he got the categories mixed up. There are the those who give to government and those who take from government. Unfortunately, I somehow ended up in the former.
As published in the Sacramento Bee on Sunday August 10
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