In another vein, the projects and things that the budget is proposed to be used for fall short of the inalienable rights of "the preservation of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." I read of the pork that is included in every bill proposed by Congress and I know that it has nothing to do with inalienable rights. As much as people want it to be, health care is not an inalienable right. As glad as we are to have federal help for some things, as often as not they fall into the pork category and not in the inalienable right category. If we want to be free and happy, we have to be free of debt. We also need to provide for ourselves. People who rely on the government and others for handouts and assistance do not have happiness. They might think that they do, but ask them what happiness is after they have had a chance to succeed at providing for themselves and they will give you a different definition of happiness. Benjamin Franklin put it this way:
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.
~Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766
Could I suggest that we lead or drive the poor out of poverty rather that leaving them to wallow in it?
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