Independence Day

Owen Robinson never ceases to amaze me. His ability to get to the heart of almost any matter just absolutely baffles me. :) His column this week, again, puts things into perspective:

Each Independence Day, it is my custom to pull out a copy of the Declaration of Independence and read it from top to bottom. No matter how many times I read it, I am always inspired by those moving words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Wow. I get goose bumps just writing them. For me, Independence Day is a time for reflection. It is a time to measure the state of our Republic against the ideals set forth in that magnificent document. While there is always much cause for jubilant celebration (hence the profusion of brats, beer and exploding things), there are also areas in which our beloved Republic falls short of the Founders’ vision. After those stirring sentences in the beginning of the Declaration of Independence that revolutionized the world, Thomas Jefferson goes on to detail a long list of grievances against King George III and the British government. Thankfully, many items on that list are no longer a problem for Americans today. We no longer have troops being quartered among the civilian population. We no longer have a King dissolving the legislatures when they get uppity. The Navy gets along great without impressing sailors off the streets of Boston. All of these things are cause for rejoicing, yet in some areas, we seem to be regressing. One of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence is: "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." The Founders knew both instinctively and through experience that the larger government gets, the more it costs and the more liberty is taken from the people. The result is that the people must live with less in order to feed a government which increasingly harasses the people it purportedly serves. King George III was a piker by modern standards. Let’s look at just the last century. In 1906, 1.62 percent of the population worked in the government. In 2006, that number is about 7.31 percent. And that excludes the armed forces. In the past century, we have seen the number of government employees increase over 450 percent as a percentage of population. The Founders would be astonished at the level of harassment that the modern American is subjected to by our government and the amount of substance that Americans forfeit to pay for that harassment. Another grievance listed in the Declaration of Independence should sound familiar to all of us. It censures the King, "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent." This is the root of the familiar mantra, "no taxation without representation." Sadly, America today is riddled with unelected bodies that impose taxes upon us. Since they are not elected, they are not acting with the consent of the people upon whom the taxes are being imposed. We need look no further than our own technical colleges in Wisconsin. Last week, Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) announced their budget for next year. It will be $309 million, which is a 6.3 percent increase in spending. To pay for this, they are increasing the property tax levy by a projected 4.9 percent to a total of $132.4 million. That’s some serious cash. The MATC board made the decision to increase taxes. Who elected them? Nobody. The MATC board is appointed by a committee of local school superintendents. The committee has to follow some rules. The board must have, "two employers, two employees, one school district administrator, three additional members and one elected official." Furthermore, four members must come from Milwaukee, one member must come from the north suburbs, one from the south suburbs, and one from either the north or south suburbs. The final two can come from anywhere. Finally, "At least two of the members from the City of Milwaukee must be minorities, with a total of at least three minority members overall; and at least three members must be women and at least three members must be men, in each case excluding the school district administrator member." What’s missing? Elections. The pataphysical process by which the board is selected completely excludes the people who end up paying the bill. It is the essence of taxation without representation. Alas, the MATC board is merely a singular example among many unelected bodies with taxing authority. In Wisconsin alone, there is MMSD, the Wisconsin Center District, the stadium authority, and many more. The Founders would be ashamed of us for voluntarily being subjects, rather than citizens, to these unelected boards. As Americans, we should be very proud of our glorious nation. But there is always room for improvement. (Owen B. Robinson, a resident of West Bend, is a blogger who publishes at www.bootsandsabers.com. His column is running Saturday instead of Tuesday in the Daily News because there will be no paper on the Fourth of July.)