I have a secret to tell you. But you cannot tell it to anyone if I tell it to you. Do you understand? Because I am super serious about how secret this secret is.
I have a secret to tell you. But you cannot tell it to anyone if I tell it to you. Do you understand? Because I am super serious about how secret this secret is.
Ok, good. Now come closer. No, no, closer. No one else can overhear this.
Now you are too close. Back up a bit. Ok, that’s good.
Here is the secret which you cannot tell anyone else. President Obama is raising the cost of your kid going to school.
What? President Obama raising costs on families? That cannot be right can it? I mean, he is all for the “little people” isn't he?
Well, as hard as it is to believe, it is true. In fact in the Penn Hills School District, where I live just outside of Pittsburgh, the cost of a school lunch is going up by $0.50 this year. And all because of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2010.
Because of this legislation, lunches served in the Penn Hills schools will go from $1.75 each to $2.25. And while that may not seem like a lot of money, it is part of a bigger problem that most Americans are blissfully unaware of. But first, a little math lesson.
That $0.50 a day is a seemingly paltry $2.50 a week for the parents of a child that use the school lunch program. In a month it comes to $10 more one must pay for lunches. Over the course of a 9 month school year it is $90 in total if a student takes advantage of buying their lunch from the school every day. And that is if you have just one kid in school.
Now like I said, this is part of a larger problem which plagues America; the hidden cost of government. Every time government regulates something and mandates a certain action be taken it adds costs. For a family of four in Penn Hills, this hidden cost of government do-gooderism is stripping $180 from their wallets because the President and Congress decided that the meals our children eat in school needed a little bit more oversight.
Now think about how this microcosm projects onto the larger world of government regulation. If something as simple as government mandating what is in school lunches, because apparently we as parents are too dumb to decide such matters on our own, can increase your bill for just living by almost $200 in a year what are bigger and more sweeping regulations adding to our cost of life?
How many thousands of regulations are there that the federal government has passed? What if just ten of them added $200 each per year to our household expenses? Those ten regulations equal $2,000 per year more we as citizens must pay just to live. And when government is so good at covering its tracks, would you even know?
Maybe you think that, despite the evidence already presented, that there is no way that there could be ten regulations out of thousands that add these sorts of costs to your daily lives. Ok then, take for example gasoline taxes. The federal government adds $0.184 to every gallon. But you may not know that because it is not printed as an individual line item on your receipt. If you fill up once a week, fifteen gallons each time, that is $143.52 per year. If you are a two car household where both parents fill up once a week that become $287.04 a year.
Still think we cannot find just 10 federal regulations that add $200 each per year to you life?
What about taxes on businesses? Think that businesses pay those? Oh, you foolish soul!
Nope. Whether they be business income taxes or the business's share of your Medicare and Social Security, you pay somewhere around, to be very conservative, 20% extra every time you buy something. If you spend just a miniscule $500 per month, $100 is flying out of your wallet to pay for those regulations and taxes. Per year this is a sum of $1,200.
And you thought politicians like Barack Obama care about you?
Still think that regulations do not cost you dearly? So how much to you really pay every year because of government and its hand? Do you really know? Do you really want to know? And if you found out, could you handle the truth?
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com
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