Too little government, says Daniel Mitchell for the Center of Freedom and Prosperity, means very low economic growth. Anarchy means that people cannot defend their property rights and have little incentive to invest and build. Interestingly, too much government means … well, just about the same thing. Richard Rahn, an economist at Cato, created the Rahn Curve to show the diminishing growth of an economy when government gets too large. In his latest Econ 101 video, Mitchell explores the meaning of the curve and asks the pertinent question — How much government is just right?
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden.
I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
—Barry Goldwater, The Conscience of A Conservative (1960)
Wesley Pruden contrasts Israel's protection of the celebration of Easter in Jerusalem with the Muslim suppression of Christianity: "Better to take your celebration to Israel, where the government will assist your visit. It's the difference between Middle East and the cultural West, between the 8th and 21st centuries, between civilized and not-so-civilized. The Israeli guarantee of religious freedom, taken for granted in the nations of the West, is part of what invites hostility and belligerence from Israel's neighbors."
With a little help from George Gilder, Jay Nordlinger offers a related contrast that is almost as stark and therefore as instructive. Nordlinger contrasts Benjamin Netanyahu with Barack Obama. He quotes Gilder: "While Obama believes that the United States has overreacted to the threat of terrorism, Netanyahu for nearly thirty years has championed and explained the war on terror in both the United States and Israel, in books, international meetings, and through the Jonathan Institute (named for his late older brother who died in the stunning Entebbe hostage rescue in Uganda).
I’ve known Tim Pawlenty for a while as Minnesota governor, and despite his national reputation as too laid-back for a tough fight, he knows how to deliver a political face-wash when he wants. This probably wasn’t one of those times, however. Pawlenty appeared on Greta van Susteren’s show to introduce his new website on fiscal restraint, which is called Stop the Spending Binge. That’s binge, mind you:
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all of those that want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
I was working as an intern in the office of then-Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale in the summer of 1969. Senator Kennedy's office was down the hall and around the corner from Mondale's on the fourth floor of the old Senate Office Building, if I remember correctly, but his cramped mail room was next door to Mondale's office.
The Chappaquiddick accident that took the life of Mary Jo Kopechne occurred that July. Last month, in connection with the fortieth anniversary of the accident, Robert George and Dermot Quinn revisited the basic facts of the Chappaquiddick story.
The death of Senator Edward Kennedy from a malignant brain tumor superimposes somber intimations of mortality onto a frequently frivolous political scene. It puts us in mind us of what Wordsworth called the "fallings from us, vanishings" that ultimately reconcile us to our own mortality. As a young man Senator Kennedy became, as he is today, the pillar of a large extended family. We extend our sympathies to his family upon his death.
Senator Kennedy became the lion of the Senate and of American liberalism. For better or worse, his legislative accomplishments have done much to shape the United States into the form he has desired. We will be living with, and taking the measure of, his legacy for a long time to come. Upon the announcement of his illness in May 2008, Washington Post columnist David Broder paid him a personal tribute that took account of his long career.
My friend Steven Hayward's The Age of Reagan, 1964-1980: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order was published eight years ago. Upon its publication, Charles Kesler saw something epochal about the book itself. Kesler declared: "The end is near. Not the end of history, but the end of liberal history, the kind of history written by liberals, for liberals, and usually about liberals[.]"
Kesler found Hayward's book to be "a magnificent new history of our times. It is a big book in every way and yet it reads quickly and delightfully." Kesler continued: "It's hard to think of anyone who would bring a better set of skills to this task than Hayward, who combines a broad knowledge of 20th century history and historiography with a ready appreciation of modern economics, particularly the key breakthroughs in monetarism, supply-side theory, and public choice."
As I intimated in my Powerline post last week, it is easy to see why political leaders should succumb to the Progressive vision and push programs conferring on the administrative state a power over our lives and well-being that is nothing short of tyrannical. Unlimited government heightens their power, and it flatters their sense of self-importance.
George Will was the featured speaker this past Monda at the Claremont Institute dinner celebrating the Claremont Review of Books at which Will received the Salvatori Prize in the American Founding. Rick Richman reports that Will gave a masterful speech including political insight, conservative philosophy, humor and baseball stories.
Rick quotes Will's response to a question following his speech that led Will to reflect on a portion of President Obama's Cairo speech. Will found the Cairo speech demonstrating Obama's apparent belief that disharmony among nations results from misunderstandings subject to cure by dialogue and communication (and the force of his own personality) -- a view that Will characterized as reflecting a 1930s approach to foreign policy. Rick's post includes the transcript and audio of Will's response as follows:
Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed the DFL’s latest tax plan early [Saturday], sending legislative leaders back into mid-morning meetings at the State Capitol to try to come up with yet another alternative with nine days left in the session.
The plan would have included tax increases on alcohol, credit card companies that charge high interest rates and couples earning more than $250,000 annually.
If this were to pass, Minnesotans would be in for a permanent credit crunch and additional flight from the state by those making $250K or more.
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they worked for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Thanks to Onie for sending me this one, from America's author of liberty, President Jefferson from 1802:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
Want a few more that are as pertinent today as when they were written...
This mornings Founders Daily Quote is one that all of our legislators should keep in mind as their respective sessions start today.
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be to-morrow."
--James Madison (likely), Federalist No. 62, 1788
Sadly it seems that there is a competition to make legislation as incomprehensible as possible so that only the "experts" can understand it.....
Cross posted at Ladies Logic where your comments are welcome.
I recently began subscribing to a newsletter that is a daily reflection of the Founding Fathers thoughts and beliefs. I got one late last week that really hit home with this blogger.
"Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech."
-- Benjamin Franklin (writing as Silence Dogood, No. 8, 9 July1722)
Reference: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Labaree, ed., vol. 1(27)
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. —John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961
Our government has no power except that granted it by people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed. It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people.
All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the states; the states created the Federal Government.
Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.
I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden.
