We recently noticed this news item where a couple of little girls in Georgia were forced by the chief of police to shut down their lemonade stand because they didn’t have the necessary permits. Three permits totaling $150 for one day of operation, to be exact.

This sort of nanny-state Gestapoism is not just ridiculous. It is an affront to liberty which should outrage us all.

But it does serve to provide us with not just fodder to write about, but it also a reason to revisit an older post from one of our contributors, revise it, and update it:

• If life gives you lemons, a socialist would say: “You have lemons? Well, a strong Government hand is needed to distribute the lemons more equitably. The Government needs to ensure that other people have lemons, too. Now, you may have to give up some of your lemons so that other people can have some, but it’s not fair that you have all these lemons and other people might not have any.”
• If life gives you lemons, a communist would say: “Those lemons are the property of the State. If you did not get your lemons from the state — and since you have a whole bagful and are not a member of the ruling elite I know you did not — then you must surrender your lemons to the State, then stand in line so that you may receive a sliver of dried out rotten lemon six months from now.”
• If life gives you lemons, a communitarian would say: “It’s great that you have lemons. And you should be able to do anything you want to with those lemons. But we’re going to tell you how you can use them and how you can’t use them. We’re also going to regulate the usage of them to make sure that they’re all used for the common good. And if you make too much money on them, we’ll tax you. For the common good.”
• If life gives you lemons, every politician will say: “Tell you what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to take half of your lemons and in return I’m going to give you half a packet of sugar so that you can make a sip of lemonade with it.”
• If life gives you lemons, a Democrat would say: “That’s too bad that you have lemons but no sugar or water or cups. I’m going to end tax breaks for big oil and corporate jet owners and then I’ll pass a law that gives you money for sugar and water and cups. I won’t check in to make sure you use it for those things. I trust you. Vote for me!”
• If life gives you lemons, a Republican would say: “That’s great that you have lemons! Do you have any sugar and water and cups? No? Well I’ll pass a law to give you a tax break so that you can use the extra money to buy sugar and water and cups. I won’t check in to make sure you use it for those things. I trust you. Vote for me!”
• If life gives you lemons, a Libertarian would say: “That’s great that you have lemons. I don’t care what you do with them so long as you don’t squeeze lemon juice in my eye. No sugar, no water, no cups? Not my problem.”
• If life gives you lemons, a welfare recipient would say, “Why did you get lemons and I didn’t?! That’s not fair! I’m gonna vote for someone who is gonna make sure that I get my fair share of lemons for free!”
• If life gives you lemons, a capitalist would say, “You have lemons? You should start a lemonade business! You don’t have sugar or water or cups? For a 25% stake in your company, I’ll invest.”

And finally: If life gives you lemons and you choose to set up a lemonade stand in Midway, Georgia, the chief of police will say: “Where are your permits, little girl?”

There’s lots of talk right now about the federal budget. Some people say “if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, we’re going to default” or “we need to raise the debt ceiling to preserve the full faith and credit of the US Government.” Others threaten the future of Social Security and military pay checks. Is there any truth to these statements? And what are all these terms, what do they mean? One of the ways politicians get their way is to use obscure language and scare tactics. Let’s look at the reality of the situation.

National debt refers to the $14,342,954,633,916.41 that we owe our creditors (like China). The federal government sells Treasury Bonds to other countries (and individuals) with a promise to pay them back at a future date (typically, 30 years), with interest.

Deficit refers to the difference between what the government makes (primarily through income taxes) and what it spends on things like the National Endowment for the Arts (currently budgeted at $155 million, though Obama has requested increasing it to $161.3 million), grants to the United Nations ($6.4 billion in 2009 alone), and subsidies to things like Amtrack ($1.6 billion per year.)

Debt limit refers to the amount of money, based on the federal budget approved by Congress, that we are allowed to borrow from other countries.

So let’s put this into terms everyone can understand: a household budget.

Say you have a mortgage, car loan, and Visa card. The amount you borrow is your debt: $100,000 for your house, $20,000 for your car, and $5,000 on your credit card would be a household debt of $125,000.

Let’s say your job pays you $2,000 per month. And to make math easy, say your mortgage payment is $1,000 a month, your car loan payment is $250 a month, and your minimum Visa payment is $50 a month. So right off the top, you have to pay $1,300 a month to your creditors, leaving you $700 a month for “discretionary spending.” Utilities, gasoline, food, insurance, entertainment… they all fall under “discretionary spending”. It’s discretionary because you can decide to eat steak or hamburger, you can opt for the $150/month cable package with all the premium channels, or opt to just watch the “basic 4″ with an antenna. You make decisions based on how you want to live and adjust your spending accordingly. Now if you spend more than $700 a month on your discretionary spending, then you have a “household deficit”.

Now if you have a household deficit and assuming you have no savings, the only way you can continue to live the lifestyle you’re accustomed to is to either 1) increase your income or 2) ask for another loan. If you decide to get a home equity loan or raise your credit card limit, you’re “raising your debt ceiling.”

For the sake of the argument, say you get a home equity loan for $20,000. This increases both your household debt by $20,000, and negatively impacts your monthly budget because instead of $1,300 a month in monthly debt, you now have an additional $150 a month you have to pay the home equity loan. You can see how this snowball effect continues to the point where you’re living almost entirely on credit… and borrowed time.

This is where our country is today.

And rather than looking at what we can cut, we are being told we need to keep spending and just borrow more. The fastest way to cut $1 trillion from the budget would be to just go back to what we were spending 4 years ago. But we’re being told we can’t do that. Some politicians in Washington — including Obama — are saying “we need to increase taxes” to fix the problem. This is like saying “you’re already working 60 hours a week… just work more,” instead of looking at the budget and deciding “we need to drop the HBO and stop buying the $17-per-pound steaks and switch to $3-per-pound ground beef.”

Don’t be fooled, America. We still have the money to pay our debts, including Social Security and military pay. It’s time to cut the premium cable and start enjoying Hamburger Helper.

Want some ideas where we can cut from the federal budget? Check out Citizens Against Government Waste’s “Prime Cuts” whitepaper. The PDF can be seen here. — ed

On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to declare the thirteen colonies independent from England. Two days later, Thomas Jefferson delivered the finished Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress, a document that encapsulated what the Founding Fathers knew to be universal rights of all mankind, rights given to us by God. The Founders knew that the purpose of government wasn’t to give us rights, but only to protect those rights.

After winning our War for Independence, we enacted first the Articles of Confederation, which failed because the federal government had too little power to protect these rights. So the states decided in 1787 to fix the Articles of Confederation. Quickly realizing that they Articles could not be fixed, but had to be replaced, the Founders began assembling the Constitution of the United States of America. They spent 116 days debating how it should be formed (13 days per page), and on on September 17, 1787, the Constitution was adopted.

What a great and momentous time. Finally, all men would be free. Finally, we would be an independent nation.

And look around you today and see how far have we fallen from that great hight.

We are a now a nation where almost 50% of the people pay no taxes, yet receive handouts from the government in exchange for their votes.

We are now a nation where we are in massive debt to foreign and hostile countries, making us dependent upon their banks for our spending habits.

We are now a nation where people roll their eyes at the needy, and grumble that “the government should do something for them.”

We are now a nation who is dependent upon other countries — some hostile — for our energy needs, while we regulate and prevent tapping our own sources of energy.

We are now a nation who is dependent upon other countries to manufacture the goods we consume.

We are now a nation of people who are largely dependent upon the federal government to “bail out” bad decisions by businesses and homeowners.

We are now a nation of people who — after a week’s warning — wait until the last minute to evacuate from an oncoming hurricane, then blame the government for not doing enough.

We are now a nation where 2000-page laws are passed, without the consent of the governed, without even one hour of debate per page, let alone 13 days.

We are now a nation where 1 in 4 don’t know what country we declared independence from, where only 58% know it happened in 1776, where only 57% of the population bothered to vote in the 2008 election, and where everyone complains about our elected officials at every level.

We are now a nation where our elected officials don’t know our own Constitution — saying that an illegal immigrant could one day be president or that the Constitution has a “good and welfare clause” — and not only does our media remain silent, we vote these people back into office. And the people that do know the Constitution, who do know their history, and who do know that the Boston Tea Party happened in 1773 are pilloried and ridiculed.

The Romans, in their enjoyment of wealth and prosperity, in their bread & circus lifestyle, lost the memory of freedom and in turn lost their freedom as well as their nation. Are we on the road to the same? Is our government  protecting our individual freedoms, or is it now not only negligent in that duty, but has instead shackled us with the chains of slavery? Are Twitter and Facebook and celebrity scandals our modern-day soma as we amuse ourselves to death? Are will still an independent nation? Are we still even worthy of celebrating Independence Day? Or are we, because of our decades of wealth and prosperity, because of our selfishness, and because of our apathy, no longer worthy of the God-given right to alter or abolish our own government?