unPHILtered: The Way I See It

by Phil Robertson

  In many ways, the U.S. government is like a lotto winner who won big—really, really big. The federal government doesn’t actually earn its money—it only takes it from you and me—and it has so many methods at its disposal to blow it through fiscal irresponsibility. And like many of the now-broke lottery winners, government officials always seem to say it’s someone else’s fault when things go wrong. Lottery winners often blame their kinfolk or friends when things go south, and it’s always convenient for our politicians to point their fingers at someone else—usually somebody from the other political party—as the reason for their pitiful stewardship.

  The U.S. government, as we know it today, is grossly bloated, inefficient, and ineffective at its current size. In 2013, the federal government spent $3.45 trillion while collecting $2.77 trillion in revenues (i.e. taxes), resulting in a deficit of about $680 billion. That probably seems like a pretty big hole, but it was actually an improvement following four consecutive years of trillion-dollar deficits. At the current rate, America is never going to pay off its debt. We’re a superpower with a third-world checkbook. We can’t even balance it! We owe about $1.3 trillion to China and $1.1 trillion to Japan. How did we become so financially irresponsible and become so indebted to foreign powers? I think it diminishes our standing in the world. As it says in Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” In a word, our government is greedy!

  The federal government can’t slow down when it comes to spending our money. Total U.S. government spending has increased by 40 percent since 2002, even after inflation, and the costs of many mandatory-spending programs (the politicians’ fancy term for entitlements) are increasing even more rapidly. Here’s the really bad part: it’s only going to get worse. Economists predict Obamacare, the federal health care program initiated by President Barack Obama, will add $1.8 trillion to federal health care spending by 2023. So much for what Benjamin Franklin said about a penny saved being a penny earned. Money burns holes in our government’s pockets! You know what they say about Washington, DC—it’s the only place in the world where your money will leave your pockets faster than it does in Las Vegas.

  At its current size, the U.S. government is too big for federal auditors, private citizens, and congressional oversight committees to serve as watchdogs. There is no oversight or accountability when it comes to government spending. If you or I were the CEO of a corporation and operated that way, with so many cost overruns and misallocated funds, our shareholders would run us out of office. If I ran a private business the way we run our government, it would go bankrupt! Duck Commander would have never gotten off the ground if I were so fiscally irresponsible. There is no bottom line in Washington. Our government agencies go on spending sprees at the end of each fiscal year for fear that their budgets will be cut the following year. There’s no motivation to save in our government. I guess the American public has become immune to what’s going on. When was the last time a politician was run out of office for misspending? It seems the only way a politician loses his or her job anymore is because of a scandalous affair. When a politician is caught exposing his private parts via a cell phone, one tends to get a clear picture of why we have ended up where we are as a nation.

  If I were ever elected U.S. president—and, hey, you never know—I would slash government agencies by 50 to 75 percent. The current federal government would be a shell of itself by the time I was done. For starters, I would restructure and drastically downsize the Internal Revenue Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, and the Department of Education. They would be unrecognizable compared to what they are today. I’d put Bibles and prayer back in schools so our children could be taught morals and the difference between right and wrong. I’d return control of the schools back to the states and local communities, where it belongs and can be properly managed. We wouldn’t need the EPA because if we learned to love God we wouldn’t pollute the earth anymore because He made it. We’d love Him so much we would never destroy His creation.

  I’d do away with federal programs in health care, law enforcement, corporate welfare, and foreign aid. I’d eliminate most of the rules and regulations in this country, and we’d learn how to make do with less. I’d do away with welfare and we’d all get back to work. If I were in charge, the federal government would never bail out another corporation again. Hey, suck it up. If you tried something and it didn’t work, it’s not my job to bail you out. You took the risk, so let it go. I’d get our outsourced jobs back to America (there were more than 2.6 million U.S. jobs outsourced to foreign countries in 2013)—or the companies doing it would pay severe penalties. Under my watch, we’d quit buying so much of our stuff from China and Japan and take pride in American-made goods again. Consumers would only buy American products, or they’d pay a very hefty price for foreign goods.

  Now, to make some serious dents in the federal deficit and make significant changes and reductions in our government, I think you’d have to have a spiritual giant in charge and have the House of Representatives and Senate behind him. The current political ideologies are clashing daily. It’s not healthy for anyone. Look at the federal government shutdown of 2013. The politicians in Congress couldn’t even agree on appropriations bills to fund the government, so they let it shut down for two weeks. It was a complete stalemate, and that’s how it’s going to continue down the road. The dialogue in Washington needs to change. It needs to become more spiritual as we move ahead. Look, I’m not antigovernment. I’m only saying we need to do some work on our government and the way it operates.

  There’s certainly plenty to trim in our federal government. Heck, there’s less fat on the backside of a Boston butt than there is in Washington. In 2013, there were 2.7 million federal government employees in civilian jobs and another 1.4 million uniformed soldiers in the military. Now, that’s actually the lowest number of employees on the U.S. government’s payroll since 1966, but you’re telling me it can’t be cut even more? Hey, I love each and every one of our soldiers, and I certainly appreciate the sacrifices they make for our country, but would our military have to be so big if we kept our nose out of foreign countries’ business? I understand the war on terror, but do we really have to intercede in every foreign crisis?

  Have you ever seen the list of government agencies? There are more than four hundred and fifty federal agencies, and most of them are divisions in larger agencies’ hierarchies. For instance, the U.S. Department of Justice includes eight divisions, six law enforcement agencies, and another twenty-eight offices. In 2012, the U.S. government spent $29 billion on law enforcement and $8.3 billion on federal prisons. Besides counterterrorism and border patrol, law enforcement needs to be handled at the state and local levels. The feds don’t need to be policing our communities; we need to be doing it. And guess what? If we learned to love God and love our neighbor, we wouldn’t need so much law enforcement policing the streets! The crime rate is always high when the love rate is low.

  There is plenty of other wasteful spending in our government. A lot of it leaves me scratching my head. Have you ever heard of the National Wild Horse and Burro Program? You’re paying for it. It’s part of the U.S. Department of the Interior. How about the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood program? It’s part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. You’re paying for that, too. But how about pastoring? Why don’t we let the churches counsel young couples and newlyweds? The government doesn’t need to be doing it. There seems to be a lot of wasted money and manpower in our government.

  According to the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank, the costs of operating the various federal agencies for each American family are staggering. Their research says the Department of Health and Human Services spent $908 billion in 2013, costing every U.S. household about $7,500. The Social Security Administration spent $873 billion (about $7,300 per household) and the Department of Defense spent $633 billion ($5,200 for every family). Just thi
nk if American families could put that money back in their pockets. They could be investing in American-made products and services, and then maybe our economy would turn around. Or, even better, they could be saving their money for financial security in the future. Instead, a lot of the money is being spent to take care of people who don’t want to work or given to foreign countries that don’t even like us.

  If you really want to become angry, take a closer look at how our government is actually spending our money. In 2013, the Interior Department spent nearly $100,000 to install an outhouse on a hiking trail in Alaska. It was an outhouse with one toilet and no internal plumbing! NASA spent nearly $125,000 to try to develop a 3D food printer that would create mini pizzas—I’ve had more than a few that tasted like cardboard—and the Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $325,000 to fund a study that revealed couples are happier when the woman calms down after an argument. Now, that’s groundbreaking stuff! They should have saved their money and called me. My marriage is much happier when Miss Kay isn’t bending my ear!

  Yep, there’s less pork at a Robertson family reunion than what you’ll find in Washington. Not surprisingly, the IRS, the very entity that collects our taxes, is one of the most egregious abusers of public money. In 2010, the IRS spent $4.1 million on a lavish conference in Anaheim, California, for more than 2,600 of its employees. The IRS spent $50,000 to produce videos—one of which was a Star Trek parody and another of which was line-dancing instruction. Are you kidding me? I’ll be sure to write off the ballroom dancing classes Miss Kay makes me go to!

  Don’t even get me started about the IRS. The U.S. federal tax code would require more than five or six thousand pages of paper to print one copy, and there’s no way the average American can figure out what’s included in it. It would seem to me that if I’m being taxed by my government, I should at least be able to know why I’m paying it and where my money is going! There has to be a simpler way! I suggest moving Election Day to April 15 every year, so voters would finally hold politicians accountable for their actions. Maybe then our government would realize that there’s a serious problem with the way it collects and spends our taxes.

  A flat tax would seem to be a much more equitable way of funding our government. It’s really a replica of the system of taxation God introduced to us in the Bible. In the Old Testament, tithes were taxes the populace paid to fund Israel’s national budget. Many Christians still believe in tithing, which means giving 10 percent of our income to God’s work, in and through the ministries of the church. According to Leviticus 27:30–33, “ ‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord. Whoever would redeem any of their tithe must add a fifth of the value to it. Every tithe of the herd and flock—every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod—will be holy to the Lord. No one may pick out the good from the bad or make any substitution. If anyone does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute become holy and cannot be redeemed.’ ”

  Dr. Benjamin Carson of Baltimore, one of the world’s most renowned neurosurgeons and a really smart man, suggested a tithing system for taxation during his speech at a National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013. He said it was the most equitable system because it didn’t penalize wealthy people for being successful. “You make ten billion dollars, you put in a billion,” Carson said at the time. “You make ten dollars, you put in one. Of course, you’ve got to get rid of the loopholes. . . . Where does it say you’ve got to hurt the [rich] guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot. We don’t need to hurt him. It’s that kind of thinking that has resulted in six hundred and two banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs.” I agree with Dr. Carson wholeheartedly. Only 57 percent of American households paid federal income taxes in 2013, and the top 20 percent of wage earners in our country accounted for more than 67 percent of total income taxes, according to some estimates. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right. Too many hardworking Americans are carrying too much of the weight, and there are far too many freeloaders in our country.

  In a lot of ways, we have basically replaced love for God and love for each other with rules and regulations in America. Love trumps all codes, rules, and regulations. Love is the answer. If there’s no Jesus, there’s no love. Love is a fulfillment of the law. The less love you have, the more laws you will need. That is a fact. We don’t love our neighbors anymore, so we try to enforce and legislate everything. But you can’t legislate love, you see, because it’s something that has to come from the heart.

  I still believe America can become the greatest nation on earth again, like it was when our founding fathers established it more than two hundred years ago. Our government has simply lost sight of what it’s supposed to be and how it’s supposed to function. It has become dysfunctional, and it’s ripe with greed, corruption, bribery, and deception. But believe it or not, any government is better than no government. Without government, rules, and regulations, there would be anarchy on every level—politically, socially, morally, economically, and domestically. First Peter 2:13–15 tells us we must submit to our government and follow its laws: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.”

  Sadly, faith is no longer important for too many Americans, and so we are no longer under the supervision of God’s law. It’s a great code of conduct, but unfortunately no one can keep it. Faith in Jesus is the only way out of this thing. We can only pray for our leaders in Washington and hope that God will guide them. As Franklin famously said, “The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.’ ”

  God wants us to submit ourselves to human authority, but we are to revere no one but God. Why? All men have sinned. God is eternally holy and perfect. He’s the only one you revere while you’re on planet Earth. Honor those in authority, but don’t revere them. More than anything, though, we need to pray for them. Lord knows they sure as heck need it.

  10

  GUN CONTROL

  Fix No. 10: Never Give Up Your Firearms

  When our founding fathers adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, announcing to the world that the thirteen American colonies had separated from Great Britain to become a new country, the document’s preamble introduced a passage that would become the cornerstone for democracy around the world: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We best never forget that this republic, America, came into existence because of the Bible, guns, and blood. The blood that spawned our nation came from two sources: Jesus, who died for us, and Americans who bravely gave it to turn away a brutal force, King George and his troops.

  According to the Declaration of Independence, I have an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, and what makes me happy, happy, happy is blowing a mallard duck’s head smooth off. Yes, it is biblically sanctioned by God. Shooting ducks obviously requires me to have a gun, and no one is going to tell me that I don’t have an unalienable right to do so, whether it’s animal rights groups or gun control advocates. Furthermore, the second amendment to the United States Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of
the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The second amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791, as part of the Bill of Rights, which also protects Americans’ freedom of religion, speech, and the press, as well as the right to a fair trial and not having the government unlawfully search and seize your property, among other things.

  I’ve been around guns my entire life and use them to hunt and protect myself. Obviously, people who hunt with guns are the consumers buying my duck calls and other Duck Commander products, so I naturally have a vested interest in the gun debate. It’s tragic any time someone dies, either maliciously or accidentally, when a gun is fired. One lost life is one too many. But America doesn’t have a gun problem—it has a sin and self-control problem. Guns aren’t the problem; it’s the people pulling the triggers. The people killing their neighbors and themselves with guns are under the control of the Evil One, along with the terrorists who crash jets into buildings, killing hundreds of people. Trust me, the murder rate in this country would drop dramatically if we started to love God and love one another. It is the solution to all of our country’s ailments, as well as the ailments of the entire world. If foreign and domestic terrorists embraced Jesus, our Lord, their murdering would end as well. Satan is leading them—all of them. It is a spiritual problem worldwide. Money and politics are not going to solve our murder problem. Gun control and more rules and regulations are not going to fix it. We’re going to have to repent, love God, love our neighbor, and get Jesus back into the equation, and then the murder rate will go down around the world. God doesn’t only love America; He loves the whole world.

  The arguments for stricter gun laws in this country simply don’t add up. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual uniform crime reports, the nation’s total violent crime rate hit an all-time high in 1991. But then it declined in eighteen of the next twenty years, 49 percent overall, to a forty-one-year low in 2011. Forcible rapes were down 36 percent and robberies decreased by 59 percent. At the same time, gun ownership and the number of privately owned guns rose to all-time highs.