We now live in an era of manufactured rights: illegal alien rights, universal free healthcare rights, free college education rights, LBGTQ rights, right to choose rights, and a list of other rights only limited by one’s imagination. All of these so called rights come with a cost of implementation that must also be continually funded year after year. Yet, these alleged rights, for which someone else has to bear the financial burden, are another form of tyranny.

According to our Declaration of Independence, rights are endowed by our Creator, not granted by our government, and they are equal among all of our nation’s citizens.  Anyone can tell a real right from a manufactured one because, definitively, a right is not a right if someone else has to pay for it! Although taxpayer rights are not endowed by our Creator, they are endorsed by our Constitution and in this era of manufactured rights, taxpayer rights have more credibility than non-Constitutionally referenced rights. It is long past time for us to hold our politicians accountable by telling them they must respect taxpayers’ rights or face the political consequences.

The idea that some people must pay for the benefits of others is foreign to our nation’s founding. This lethally flawed idea, instead, evolved out of the blood filled French Revolution to become solidified in the doctrines of Karl Marx and then forced upon our nation in the twentieth century. Conversely, the US Constitution declares[1] that Congress only has the power to lay and collect taxes to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the United States.[2]  The Constitution does not authorize any other type of spending and all of the clauses, following the common defense and general welfare clause, only clarify what common defense and general welfare mean.

It is from the common defense and general welfare clause that taxpayers derive their right not to pay for benefits, or alleged rights, that they do not receive. This basic concept is embedded in the definition of the words “common defense” and “general welfare”. The words “common” and “general” tell the story in their similar context. “Common” means: pertaining or belonging equally to the entire nation; and “general” means: common to most. Together, these two words convey the idea that if the benefit for congressionally authorized expenditures is not common to the entire nation, or at least common to most, it is unconstitutional spending for which our elected officials have no authorization.

American taxpayers should not have to bear the burden for someone else’s benefit. Why should American taxpayers have to pay for people who decide that they are going to transgress American immigration law by illegally crossing our borders, or for students to receive a “free” college education, or for anyone to receive anything for which they do not work to obtain? A host of policies and programs, funded by our national government, for which the benefits are neither common nor general, but instead are individual and specific are all paving stones on the road to national bankruptcy.

Ethically and constitutionally, we, the taxpayers of the United States, should only have to pay for policies and programs that provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare. To do otherwise is congressional theft! Demand your taxpayer rights! Vote for political candidates who will not give your money away, and then hold them accountable!

[1] Article I, Section 8, Clause 1.

[2] Matt Shipley, Who is General Welfare, http://americanfoundingprinciples.com/who-is-general-welfare/#more-101, accessed September 22, 2018.