Government?

I have been thinking about this for some time, and I am not sure I know the answer.

But I believe a lot of politicians don't have an answer either. So, here are some of my thoughts, right off the top of my head, balding as it might be.

What is the purpose of government?
Why do we have so many governments?
Do we really need all these governments, and their continuous law making?

After much consideration, I have decided that government is an extension of the feudal system that evolved in Europe. Government has evolved from the system of kings, lords, knights, priests, bishops and such. We, the common citizen, are surfs of course.

We have a federal government because we had to replace King George with something. We, the 13 colonies, needed to unite for common defense. In creating this replacement, the framers took on a number of other tasks for the federal government; among them being the issuing of money, and the control of interstate commerce.

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is the preamble to our constitution. The document is four, handwritten, pages long, and lays the foundation for our government, all three branches. Yes the pages are quite large, but still, hand written. It contains just 4,500 words.

Let's compare that to a recent federal law passed by both houses of Congress and signed by our President. Public law 111-148, March 23, 2010. Depending on formating, it contains between 906 and 2197 pages with somewhere between 384,000 and 418,000 words. (I am not sure how you count all those numbers in this law.)

The title of this Federal Law is "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." The Table of Contents for this law runs 12 pages; thats three times longer than the Constitution!

Did any legislator read the whole thing? How many people are employed, full-time, to interpret what it says? Do you know what it says? How many people will be employed to enforce it? Do you know what it is going to do to your life? Why does it take 4 years to go into full effect? The Constitution went into effect as soon as 8 states ratified it. Maybe four years is how long Congress thought it would take us to take cover, or maybe it had to do with elections in 2012. Perhaps it is the amount of time needed to set up a new federal bureaucracy to manage it, and budget for the operations an maintenance of that bureaucracy.

Well, one thing I know is that over all, given the time to prepare, Medical insurance costs are going up, and benefits are going down. I have just recently been informed that Walgreen's Drug Stores will not be accepting my Drug Prescription Plan starting next year. Do you remember what happened when Congress passed a law to "protect" us from those unscrupulous credit card companies?