Economic freedom at stake

In recent months almost 3,000 citizens and friends of Milam County eagerly signed petitions, wrote letters, and used other means declaring strong opposition to long secret plans for a Little River Off-Channel Reservoir. If it happens it would be somewhere in the Gause-Milano area.
The most detestable aspect of the planning is the Brazos River Authority’s power of eminent domain, BRA’s power to seize private property with payment of mere market value of the confiscated properties.
My purpose in this letter is to show you that Milam is not alone. Our nation is experiencing a creeping totalitarian tendency that all U.S. citizens must wake up and see. Explaining this may be a challenge for some readers, but here it is as reported on-line and in print.
“Economic freedom in the United States [is in decline]... U.S. decline in economic freedom is more than three times greater than the average decline in the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the name of an international organization of countries with highly developed economies and democratic governments]. It could cut the US historic growth of 3 percent by half.”
Why should we care? It’s about our life’s highest satisfaction. What is that? People who perceive they have control over their lives produces personal life satisfaction. Perhaps surprisingly, having control over our lives is more important to us than per capita income levels and other indicators of material well-being.
Threats to our lives’ satisfaction are growing and chief among extortions afoot are weakening of the legal system that protects our property rights, a “particularly large and alarming decline. Likely culprits are the increased use of eminent domain to transfer property to powerful political interests, ramification of the wars on terrorism and drugs, and the property rights of bondholders in the auto-bailout” in recent years.
Source of the information above that correlates with Milam’s own experience in at least one case is Economic Freedom of the World 2015 Annual Report from Fraser Institute, a respected think tank. You can read the whole documented report on-line at www.fraserinstitute.org.
– Marion Travis, Cameron