Coolidge Comments on the Expenditure of Public Money

"Nothing is easier than the expenditure of public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody. But the results of extravagance are ruinous. The property of the country, like the freedom of the country, belongs to the people of the country. They have not empowered their Government to take a dollar of it except for a necessary public purpose. But if the Constitution conferred such right, sound economics would forbid it. Nothing is more destructive of the progress of the Nation than government extravagance. It means an increase in the burden of taxation, dissipation of the returns from enterprise, a decrease in the real value of wages, with ultimate stagnation and decay. The whole theory of our institutions is based on the liberty and independence of the individual. He is dependent on himself for support and therefore entitled to the rewards of his own industry. He is not to be deprived of what he earns that others may be benefited by what they do not earn. What he saves through his private effort is not to be wasted by Government extravagance."

A year or so ago, WBZ TV reported that President Obama's illegal alien Aunt Zeituni was collecting SSDI disability payments and was in subsidized public housing in Boston. Is Aunt Zeituni just the tip of the ice berg of SSDI misuse by non-citizens who may very well not have paid into the system? Add to this the fact that free cell phone access is now considered a Constitutional right for welfare recipients under "Safelink" and I think you can see what the recent fight over the debt limit increase was about.
In President Coolidge's fourth annual message, he straightens us out on the need to control government extravagance and to remain self reliant. In another quote he notes: "We review the past not in order that we may return to it but that we find in what direction, straight and clear, it points to the future."

As you can see, President Coolidge is not the "Silent Cal" that those of the liberal persuasion have described him as being. Actually, he was quite eloquent, and unlike presidents of contemporary times, he wrote his own speeches.

This is a re-publish of an August 12, 2011 Patch article, so we do not forget.

Republish authorized by The Divine Authority.

Thank you my Humble, sincere, sensitive and omnipotently powerful Friend, a Friend of Unlimited power, whose Plan, made at Creation is being revealed to all, as He deems necessary, under His omnipotent authority, and under His penultimate and sole discretion. A sincerity of which I am absolutely and most emphatically convinced and sure. --J. Bruce Gabriel