Terminate Illegitimate Government Programs…Before They Terminate Us

I recently heard that the Oregon legislature actually may kill a wasteful, non-productive, and from my perspective, illegitimate government program.

I won’t tell you which one, because that could give its supporters time to organize and to pressure legislators to keep squeezing taxpayers for more money to keep their gravy train alive. This program and many others wouldn’t have existed in the first place if we had kept true to the legitimate purpose of government in America.

Our founders gave us a government whose proper role is to protect our lives, liberty, and property, not to redistribute wealth, nor to offer us bread and circuses. However, modern day national, state, and local governments have morphed into much more than this.

The beneficiaries of these illegitimate government programs will keep coming back, until they get what they want from us. This reminds me of a famous line in the original 1984 Terminator movie. Here it is, spoken by the character Kyle Reese to Sarah Connor. Listen now, and understand what we’re up against:

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

For Cascade Policy Institute, and every believer in limited government, I’m Steve Buckstein, and “I’ll be back.”

Steve Buckstein is Senior Policy Analyst and Founder of Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization. He is also, occasionally, its Satirist-in-Residence.