Overflight, 116

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?
There is a tendency to read about these trends with a kind of detached fascination: Isn’t that interesting! But where is the relevance? Why get excited over such technicalities and abstractions? So what if the government is mired in debt? Who cares if the interest will never be paid? What of it if we have a world currency or a world government? What difference will any of it make to me?
The first step toward answering those questions is to see what difference it already has made. Our upcoming trip into the future will merely extend those lines.
As illustrated in previous sections of this book, there has been a long−term policy at the highest levels of government to shift economic resources away from the United States. That policy has been successful. Based on doomsday predictions of environmental disaster, government has saddled private companies with such burdensome expenses for eliminating waste products that heavy industry, once the mainstay of American prosperity, has fled our shores. Because of concern over the natural habitat of the spotted owl and the desert kangaroo rat, millions of acres of timber and agricultural land have been taken out of production. High taxes, rules beyond reason for safety devices in the work place, so−called fair−employment practices, and mandatory health insurance are rapidly destroying what is left of America’s private industry. The result is unemployment and dislocation for millions of American workers.
Federal taxes, including social−security, now take more than 40% of our private incomes. State, county, and local taxes are on top of that. Inflation feeds on what is left. We spend half of each year working for the government.