Michael Rowan
Special for El Universal

In April, 1996 I wrote a column with this title about the choice between pork barrel spending versus wheelbarrow investment. "The pork barrel represents piñata politics. The wheelbarrow represents hard work. Wasteful pork barrel spending has no long-term economic value to the nation, while wheelbarrow investments can turn this nation toward economic growth."

"It is a choice of work over deals, self esteem over rentism, freedom over dependence, reason over blind loyalty, and the future over the past. The people want the wheelbarrow, work, freedom, reason and the future. But entrenched special interest groups are more tied to the pork barrel, deals, rentism, blind loyalty to group claims, and the degenerative politics of the past and its bankrupt distributive system. It is a past based upon the BIG LIE that Venezuela is a rich country. No it is not. Venezuela is potentially rich, but 80% of the people are actually poor. Unless this BIG LIE is honestly faced and vanquished by the truth, poverty and misery will worsen."

"Venezuela must dismantle the props that support the BIG LIE. The subsidies must be removed. Government must be downsized. State enterprises must be privatized. Private enterprise must be de-protected and de-controlled. The population must be educated so they have the skills to compete. The judiciary must be made to respect and obey the law. Venezuela must join the world, a free market, and compete successfully there."

"Venezuelans know that there is no future to the failed past of wasteful public spending. The economic destiny of the nation is based upon future private investment, not public spending, and the people know it. Indeed, if the pork barrel spenders win this debate and it results in more wasteful spending, little positive change can be expected here for many years to come. The responsibility for winning this life-of-death economic struggle does not belong only to political leaders. No, that is another part of the BIG LIE. We are all responsible for what Martin Luther King meant when he said, The truth will set us free." Ten years later, this column, brought to my attention by a reader, Cornelio Vuurman, rings true again, but this time with the sadness of the funeral dirge.
mrowan@cantv.net 

Michael Rowan's column is published every Tuesday