If It Stops Moving, Subsidize It

clipped from www.moonbattery.com Here's how the great Ronaldus Maximus summed up Big Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. Thanks to the relentless growth of the bureaucratic cancer that is choking the life out of our country, ever more of the economy has stopped moving, thereby earning subsidies — i.e., money stolen from you to be doled out by our corrupt rulers to whomever deserves it least. Since Reagan's modest efforts to rein them in, federal subsidies have nearly doubled, reaching the 2,000 mark a few days ago. Cato@Liberty comments: There is a federal subsidy program for every year that has passed since Emperor Augustus held sway in Rome. We've gone from bread and circuses to food stamps, the National Endowment for the Arts, and 1,999 other hand-out programs from the imperial city on the Potomac. I wonder if the Roman governing class rushed headlong into decline and ruin deliberately, the way ours seems to be doing.