“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” — Author unknown

Liberals object to the pejorative tone of that quote, often mis-attributed to Alexis DeTocqueville and Alexander Tytler. They see the quote more usefully rendered, “The American Republic will endure as Congress discovers it can build up the country with the public’s money.”

Liberals believe Congress should levy extortionate taxes on the private sector and on the greedy rich and invest those funds in public infrastructure projects, social safety networks and the green economy. In return for this beneficial redistribution of stolen and hoarded wealth, a thankful public endlessly re-elects its Democratic Party representatives.

I like the quote as it reads. It perfectly depicts what’s going on today: bribery.

Once upon a time, a vibrant economy and equality of opportunity joined forces to call the poor up from poverty.

Democrats have crippled that economy. They’ve created labor participation rates that linger at historic lows even as they’ve enriched their cronies on Wall Street.

Success for the poor now lies on their accepting their status as a perpetual underclass and on their signing up for an expanding list of entitlements from food stamps to disability. The poor now have nowhere else to go but to Democrats and their promises of endless government checks upon which the poor grow ever more dependent.

Democrats have indeed discovered the key to electoral success. The price of their ascendancy is the republic’s endurance.

Leonard Hoy, Greenwood