Lessons for America

                    The topic for this Freedom Friday is that Americans must learn some economical lessons in order to escape our fiscal troubles.  If we do not learn these lessons, we will be following Greece and other European nations in our own economical downward spiral of taxes, spending, and debt.

                    Dan Mitchell, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, Washington's premier free-market think tank, has written several articles about the European fiscal crisis and how America is following in thefootsteps of the European welfare states.    

Mitchell recently wrote an interesting article for Big Government and included a very educational video that is simple enough for children to understand.  All members of government - local, state, and national - should be required to watch it.  The video is entitled "Economics101:  The European Fiscal Crisis and Lessons for America."  It is from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity and is narrated by a beautiful, young Italian woman by the name of Miss Silvia Morandotti, a student at the University of Milan and a former intern at the Cato Institute. 

                    The five lessons from the mini-documentary that America must learn in order to escape our present fiscal trouble and avoid the downward spiral of taxes, spending, and debt of European nations:  1) Higher taxes lead to bigger government and higher spending, not lower deficits.  2) Do not allow politicians to impose a value-added tax (VAT) because a VAT would be a disaster.  In order to "impose a European-style welfare state in the United States" our statist leaders must first impose a "European-style money machine for big government."  3) Big Government not only slows growth by creating a welfare state, but it also cripples the human spirit.  4) Nations reach a point of no return when there are more people eating from the governmental trough than there are workers producing the food.  The video has two cute cartoons to teach this concept.  5) Bailouts don't work but only make things worse.  Would Portugal, Italy, and Spain be in such fiscal trouble if Greece had never been given a bailout?  Would our nation have such terrible fiscal problems if General Motors and Chrysler had not been bailed out?  Mitchell wrote in his article that he would add one more message:  "The private sector should grow faster than the government."

                    Mitchell writes very informative articles, and I recommend that you study a few of them.  For some cute cartoons about what a welfare state looks like at the beginning andthe end, check out this article by Mitchell.