Labor Day: Private Sector vs. Public Sector

By Douglas V. Gibbs
I ate too much, but the day off with pay was a welcomed thing. Labor Day is one of those holidays that everyone gets, from the federal employee to the guy digging trenches. I get about five holidays per year as a truck driver, and they all end with me eating too much food at a get-together.

We have come to the point of fully accepting Labor Day as an American Holiday. Also, it is the last big weekend before the end of summer. On Labor Day we devote our time to eating too much, taking a trip to the beach, or throwing the ball around in the street out front.

After a year of hard labor, the holiday presents the opportunity to take a break from the daily grind, and get a little back for the hard work. We spent the entire year working for a fair day's pay for a good day's work, while expecting to keep most of what we produce. Then, on Labor Day, we get a quick thank you, and a full belly at a bar-b-que.

Every working day of every year I get up early to go out and make a living. It is up to me to make sure I produce enough wages for my family to survive. Taking care of my family is one of my ways of exercising my individualism. Despite the economic forecast I do whatever it takes to produce good wages. I have been a military man, a banker, a salesman, a financial adviser, a city government worker, a construction worker, and I am now a truck driver. Each job I have had was not my dream job. It was not the living I hoped for as a child. But each of those jobs were the best job for taking care of my family at the time.

As a fierce individual, I was willing to change careers often, in search of the highest paid living.

Americans throughout history have proven over and over that hard work, and self-motivation results in a successful life. It is because I live in a free nation I have been able to pursue the various vocations I have held. When times were good, we lived better, and my savings account grew. When times got tough I pulled myself up by the bootstraps, did side jobs if necessary, and my savings shrank in order to compliment my income. Even in recession I have been willing to do whatever it takes to keep my family fed and housed.

The Democrats, in regards to some aspects of what my opinion is, disagree with me. Obama once said, "What if the person has no bootstraps to pull on?"

And how could it be that someone like me is able to survive, refusing partial unemployment, or any other assistance from the government?

The Left does not understand this mentality. They believe that nothing ought to occur without the government's consent, or administration. They believe government alone can create jobs out of thin air, and that our jobs should be performed not because we desire to make a better life, but because our contribution is good for the common good.

Government doesn't create jobs that does anything positive for the economy. The liberal left claims we must increase consumption to get us out of the recession. We must get people to buy things. But what good is increased consumption without an increase in production? Business owners create jobs, and goods. Sometimes individuals create their own jobs with an entrepreneurial spirit. Large corporations also create jobs. Government simply makes work, and collects people to perform the tasks.

The private sector is what encourages economic growth. The free market makes an economy healthy and wealthy. That is how America became the richest nation in the world in the first place. We did it with free market capitalism.

As the economy suffers, we are seeing raises and benefit increases in the government sector while the unemployment rate continues to rise. There is something wrong when government is rewarded for making more rules, and raising taxes, while private enterprise, which is where the real wealth of the nation comes from, are punished, especially if they make too much money.

Labor Day celebrates the hard worker because it is the individuals like me laboring in the private sector that makes the economy grow, not some faceless bureaucrat somewhere on Capitol Hill. It is the taxpayer, not the tax collector, that makes our nation great. It has never been government. It has never been bureaucracy. The U.S. Constitution was designed to limit the powers of the federal government for a reason. The founding fathers knew if too much power was obtained by the government, people like Obama would take possession of the government and try to change the American Form of Government.

On Labor Day we celebrate individualism, hard work, and the real America. That is what I celebrated today. And I ate too much.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary