Back in the "good old days" there were towns built around a single industry. Mining towns are a good example. The mining company employed most everyone who lived in the town and they also owned the only store where these people could get the supplies they needed to survive. Families could buy what they needed on credit, of course. It was even encouraged. The end result was families so over their heads in debt to the company store that they were virtual prisoners to the mining company. Quit working and you can't pay your debt. Since there were no other jobs in town you couldn't leave and get another job to pay those bills. Try to skip town without paying and you end up in a jail run by a sheriff owned by the mining company. So they toiled away at backbreaking jobs in dangerous conditions for pennies.
I think it was Tennessee Ernie Ford who sang the lyric: "I owe my soul to the company store."
Our federal government is fast becoming the company store. This isn't an Obama bash because, quite frankly, this started with FDR and has continued under every president since. Obama is fast-tracking it, yes, but he didn't start it.
When did the safety net become, for so many, a way of life? Government is ever on the lookout for a new way to give us something in return for freedom. With freedom, the people has control of government. When we become dependent on the government for our daily bread, government controls the people.
People from all over the planet migrated to North America to escape governments that controlled their daily lives. We are fast becoming what our forefathers risked life and limb to escape.
Ronald Reagan said it best, and I paraphrase: "Government is not the solution -- government is the problem."
