<p>Many people believe that our government should do more to solve our problems. After all, how can one individual create more jobs or make roads safer or improve the schools or help to provide any of the other benefits that we have come to enjoy? And yet expecting that the government--rather than individuals--should always come up with the solutions to society's ills may have made us less self-reliant, undermining our independence and self-sufficiency.</p>
<p>Assignment:
Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>Essay:
More government involvement or less? That question's been a political controversy in the United States since the Declaration was signed in 1776. Each side of this issue is even the focal point for the two main political parties in our country--Republicans and Democrats. The government is supposed to be the skin that protects its country, but the bones and organs that make the country function are supposed to be the people, not the government as well.
The main reason the colonies split from Great Britain was that the Mother Country had become too oppressive. Not only was she setting up useless taxes, but her soldiiers could quarter at any house if desired. After the war, when the founding fathers gathered in Independence Hall, only one thing was for certain--the less government involvement in Young America, the better. If only the founding fathers could see the government today: high taxes, useless government programs, and even SOPA & PIPA bills that are trying to regulate the internet. In answer to an argument that one individual can't build roads or create more jobs by himself, two is better than one. The Declaration begins, "We the People," not "We the Individual." If people learned to work better as a community, not only would they become more self-reliant and independent, the defecit would get better due to the fact that the government wouldn't feel the need to tax its citizens and then create programs to help them.
Government dependency can also be traced back to Pople John Paul II in the second Vatican Council. He said that if a person can solve a problem by himself, he should do it; higher orders (like the government) should be a last resort if a problem can't be solved alone. He said this because not only do people become lazy if they know their government will do everything for them, but the world will benefit more from self-reliance.
People have fallen into a bad habit of relying on the government for everything. We need to start taking responsibility for our own problems, and the country and its economy will start to improve.</p>