Leaving America

Posted by Jeff Carter
on April 17th, 2012

Two years ago, I wrote that America was in danger of becoming a Roach Motel. We focus a lot on immigration, and we should. America needs immigration. However, the Democratically controlled Congress of 2006-2010 changed laws that made it harder to renounce your American citizenship. They jacked up the financial cost of it.

Last year, almost 1,800 people followed Superman’s lead, renouncing their U.S. citizenship or handing in their Green Cards. That’s a record number since the Internal Revenue Service began publishing a list of those who renounced in 1998. It’s also almost eight times more than the number of citizens who renounced in 2008, and more than the total for 2007, 2008 and 2009 combined.

Since Obama’s election, more people are choosing to leave the country. Last year, a record number renounced their citizenship. You might say it’s both political parties fault. In some ways, I agree. But in one way I disagree. The Democrats embrace a high tax, government centric, socialistic model of governing. There are Republicans that are difficult to distinguish apart from Democrats, and that doesn’t include RINOs.

That’s why I really have a problem with Republicans that focus solely on social issues. They aren’t much different than the fanatics on the other side.

There is an ever growing segment of people in this country that get it. You can see their effect in the continual 10% of the vote that Ron Paul seems to get. They want financial sanity, and don’t give two whits about the social agenda on the top of the list of many Republicans.

Many of my Democratic friends will say, they are “fiscally conservative and socially liberal”. It’s a cop out. They cringe when I ask, “If we banned all federal funding of abortion, including subsidies to organizations like Planned Parenthood but didn’t ban or restrict abortion-would you be okay with it?”. That’s when you find out if they have fiscally conservative chops.

If they were fiscal conservative/socially liberal, Planned Parenthood would be rolling in money from charitable contributions from people that wanted to support their efforts. The problem with most liberals/Democrats is they figure out a cause they think is socially just and then want the government to pay for it. That’s not a fiscal conservative.

I realize it’s only 1800 people. But in most cases, they are making an economic choice. They see more opportunity in other places than in the US and that’s a shame. Imagine if we broke down the barriers to exit the country. We might see this trickle turn into a river. That would be worse.

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