Our Liberty is Challenged this 4th of July

Carrie Lukas at Townhall makes the case that expansive government is threatening our liberty.

Millions of American women are busy with July 4th preparations. They are dusting off picnic blankets, preparing potato salad, and making arrangements with friends and family for firework displays. Few have time to thinking about the meaning of our country's founding and how events today may change our country in important ways.

As any school child could tell you, our founders rebelled because they wanted to escape a too-intrusive government. Since then, we have allowed government to expand in ways the founders never contemplated. Presently, our government is expanding once again. American women should consider what that means for their families and our basic rights and liberties.

Federal spending has soared this past year. While it's justified as necessary to stimulate a flagging economy, it's worth asking why our government grew so big even before the banking and housing crisis hit. For decades, the federal government has spent nearly one of every five dollars in the economy. This year, it will climb to about one in four. To support this spending, the government is issuing trillions of dollars of new debt. They claim it's necessary to solve today's problems. But what about tomorrow's?

We are constrained today because our government is already so large and over-extended. That problem will only get worse. Due to promises the government has already made—most specifically spending on Social Security and Medicare—the share of the economy that government will demand is going to continue to balloon.

This isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. This means that your children and grandchildren will have less control over the money they earn and their property because they will have to pay off liabilities accrued this year. That generation will have less to meet global challenges and each family will have less to meet personal ones.

Read more here.