Thursday, July 31, 2008

The Cleveland Raids


Another government violation of the public trust was exposed this week. An article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer gives the details of the case that the IRS and the FBI have brought against Cuyahoga County officials for using taxpayers’ money unethically for their own advantage.

Raids on the county offices proceeded on suspicion that a county commissioner and the auditor gave county construction contracts to businesses that gave them free home improvements in exchange. There were also many other alleged illegal deals between the two allegedly corrupt politicians and various businesses.

First of all, what gives the FBI and IRS the right to get involved in this? This is a local matter. It should have been the state attorney general’s job to investigate this matter.

The article’s author mentions all the benefits of these construction projects. This is the problem. Everybody wants these projects which force taxpayer’s to pay for “job creation” or “economic revitalization”, but then they are all shocked when there are abuses. What right has the government have that allows it to take your money and use it for the “overall good” when it is really just giving it away to rich people just hoping that they will use it in a way that benefit everyone. What does the right to property mean? The author of the article gives a list of reasons why government exists: “revitalizing the economy, serving troubled and abused children and possibly even caring for soldiers injured in Iraq and aging veterans.” What about punishing criminals? Isn’t that really the real purpose of government? Isn’t that the way it used to be? Isn’t that what the Bible says (Romans 13)? Certainly soldiers do deserve healthcare from the government because of the service they have provided to the country. (Even though the President got us into the war on false pretenses, the soldiers are not at fault for this and should receive just compensation.)

As long as people continue to vote according to what is most “economically beneficial” and not what is most biblically correct, we can expect more and more corruption cases such as this. If the government did not get involved in these “economic stimulation” programs there would be much less temptation and opportunity to pull off these corrupt practices and we wouldn’t have the federal government raiding our communities as often.

Read more about how governments ruin communities by "economic revitalization" here.

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