Yesterday I discussed Governor Bill Ritter’s plans to ask for more tax dollars — for a goal yet to be decided.
The Rocky Mountain News article that I cited contains another telling line:
Ritter appeared before the committee to present his first proposed budget, which was received warmly, signaling it has a good chance of being adopted mostly intact.
Ritter told the committee that his “moral document” would boost funding for higher education and children’s health care…
In other words, Ritter believes that it is moral to take wealth by force from some people in order to give it to others. Thus, it is no surprise that Ritter wants to increase tax spending even more than it has already been increased in recent years. Yesterday I asked, “And how much will he ask for?” The answer is, “As much as he can get away with.” That is, as much as Coloradans will tolerate. According to Ritter’s explicit moral premises, there is no “moral” limit to increases in tax spending, so long as some people have wealth that other people “need.” According to Ritter’s philosophy, people who earn wealth have no right to it. In times past, Ritter’s “moral” philosophy at its most consistent was summed up by the principle, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
Yet Ritter is not content merely to forcibly transfer wealth and allow the recipients to define their needs. Instead, he wants to tell people what they need, then redistribute wealth accordingly. For example, Ritter’s administration thinks that children “need” to be taught more rigorously how to be good little environmentalists — at taxpayer’s expense, of course. As David Harsanyi writes for The Denver Post:
Not long ago, Ritter assembled the P-20 Education Coordinating Council to foster a “seamless education system from pre-school to grad- school.”
Nowhere in the literature of the P-20 Education Coordinating Council — and I’ve looked far and wide — does it mention anything about the educational system being used to politically indoctrinate children.
Yet, the Climate Action Plan [proposed by Ritter] says that “the state will work through the Governor’s P-20 Education Council and others to make sustainability curricula become standard fare in K-12 classrooms throughout the state.”
Why doesn’t Ritter “think big” and “be bold” and propose using the tax-funded “seamless education system from pre-school to grad-school” to teach endless classes on the theme, “Why Politicians Should Run Your Life?”