“Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy—where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending, where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.”
“Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities, services, and budgeted sectors with bloated payrolls and losses that hurt the economy.”
One of the above statements was uttered by the president of the United States, the leader of the free world, Barack Obama. The other was issued by the labor federation of communist Cuba. Any guesses as to which is which?
If you guessed that the first came from our American president, you were right. If you guessed that the second came from communists in Cuba who have tried government control of the economy, only to find that it has failed miserably, you were also right.
Cuba will soon be laying off half a million government workers. That’s nearly 5% of the country’s entire population. Eventually, more than a million jobs will be trimmed from government rolls. It turns out that the Cubans think an expanded private economy might serve their country better. This should come as a surprise only to someone who has been locked in a closet for the last 25 years, missing the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the U.S.S.R., the relaxing of Chinese communism, and the utter failure of any other communist country to supply its citizens with even the most basic standard of living.
According to Barack Obama and his lieutenants, he is not a socialist or communist. (Is there much of a difference, really?) But one can hardly think of an area of human activity where the president would not argue for expanded government involvement (except in regards to preventing illegal immigration). From health care, to finance, to the car you drive, the home you live in, the things you buy, and even the food you eat, Barack Obama wants the government to hold your hand.
So now Americans have to ask themselves this: if every country that has tried “more government” has decided against it, why is the Obama administration pushing America toward it? For 200 years America has based its growth on less government and has used that model to become the envy of the world. In tough economic times, America should not abandon the free-market principles that created its prosperity; it should reinforce them.
