The Spirit of '76

In addition to being one of our most colorful and quotable Founding Fathers, Ben Franklin was also a pioneer in a sad Massachusetts traditon, being born here, but moving to more favorable locals to seek opportunity. Well, in his case escaping messy domestic entanglements ran a close second to expanded job prospects. Lately, it seems hardly a day can pass without coming across a story that brings to mind Franklin's warning that "If you make yourselves sheep, the wolves will eat you". In our modern drama, the roles of the original "wolves"(King George and Parliament), are being played by progressive politicians and their special interest allies.

Close to home we have Mayor Holaday, who is demanding that we pay more in taxes and the princely sum of $50 for the privilege of parking downtown while she receives a hefty raise. In the case of Governor Patrick we have someone who has raised taxes eight times and promises to raise them again if he's re-elected. We are represented in Congress by Rep. Tierney, who has repeatedly voted to bailout his union allies(both public and private), while voting for cap and trade and Obamacare which will cost the average household thousands of dollars more a year. Cap and trade alone is expected to decrease economic activity by $9.4 trillion between 2012-2035, that's a lot of jobs that won't be created in a country already suffering 9.6% unemployment. Last but not least we have Sen. Kerry(Captain My Captain to the crew of the Isabel) who attempted to skate on $500,000 in taxes by docking his $7 million yacht in R.I..

While they occupy different offices, their solution is always the same, raise taxes. My question, borrowed from the movie "Wall St." for our progressive leaders is how much is enough? If they're in an honest mood they'll tell you that taxes will have to increase until the ever changing goal of "social justice" is achieved. Meaning, that government will of necessity get ever bigger, requiring ever more bureaucrats and ever more of our money. We know the path they are leading us on is unsustainable, the Congressional Budget office (CBO) has said so and now progressive hero Fidel and his equally tyrannical brother Raul have admitted as much. The statement from the Cuban government read in part "Our state can't keep maintaining...bloated payrolls," . Neither can we.

This Fall our choice is clear. We can meekly follow our progressive leaders as they attempt to transform our city, state and nation into another Greece or Cuba or we can vote for candidates who embrace the concepts of economic freedom, individual liberty and individual responsibility. Our forefather's risked everything to give us a Republic, it's up to us to ensure that it doesn't become an oligarchy. Once we go down that road it's almost impossible to come back. Just ask the Castro's, they wanted to lay off a million bureaucrats, but settled for half that after they saw their Greek counterparts firebombing banks.