It's Official Gerard Is A Libertarian
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
I've been toying with labeling myself that way for quite a while now. I would say things like, "I might be a Libertarian" or "I think I could be a Libertarian."
But it's time.
I can't, in good conscience, call myself a conservative. Besides, there is no such thing as a conservative in Washington anymore.
I've been off a couple weeks and during that time I tried - tried - to avoid lots of news. It's a vacation.
But try as I might, I always found myself scanning the headlines, flipping on CNN for a while or surfing up news on the Web.
And what I've been hearing from John McCain and Barack Obama and the Congress these day is enough to drive a guy like me to that razor-thin line between sanity and psychosis.
Honestly, I am so sick and tired of hearing politicians - in either party - tell me that they are going to employ the government to make my life better, I could literally don a clown suit and head for the nearest tower with an AK-47.
How can they not get it?
The government isn't going to solve anything. It generally makes things worse while cannibalizing huge amounts of our nation's wealth and productivity.
It's pretty easy to see how our intrepid leaders have sold us out, all the while telling us about the wonderful things they are doing for us. When government tries to fix one thing, something else usually ends up broken.
Let's start the journey through the abyss of unintended consequences of government policy with the economy.
Seeing that the economy is foundering a bit, the Federal Reserve decides to cut interest rates.
Ostensibly, it was to curb inflation so people would have more buying power. People buying more stuff is good for the economy, to be sure. But only to a point.
Every policy has a tipping point, and I am pretty confident the Fed's interest rate cuts led us into all manner of ill economic outcomes.
Take the mortgage crisis.
Oh, sure, you can blame all those unscrupulous lenders who hoodwinked borrowers into biting off more than they can chew if you want to.
But was it really their fault?
What was in play that gave lenders the opportunity to offer mortgage loans at ridiculously low interest rates and drive the price of houses sky high?
That would have been the Fed cutting interest rates.
And while that makes for some really attractive monthly loan payments, it drives investors away from things like bonds and CDs. It discourages people from saving money. Simultaneously, it encourages people to spend money by keeping inflation artificially low and because credit card companies can offer a year's worth of 0-percent interest on balance transfers.
So - as a matter of government policy - you have in place a plan that encourages people to buy a bigger house than they can afford and stuff if full of consumer goods they can't pay for.
Nice.
And, as a policy maker, you would have to know that eventually those rates will rise, wouldn't you? And, when they rise, what do you suppose the likely outcome will be?
Mortgage crisis. People can't afford those homes anymore.
And as the crisis ripples through the housing market and banks and mortgage companies start to fail, investors get jittery.
The stock market takes a beating because investors start looking at commodities like gold and silver and grain and oil futures to invest in. Remember, you can't make any money in the bond market because interest rates are so low.
(And by the way, the interest rate cutting also drove down the value of the dollar against foreign currencies. This also helped boost the price of oil. And as foreign governments shy away from the dollar as an investment, it worsens our already insanely massive national debt problem.)
As investors flood to commodities, those prices - already rising because of other economic pressures - rise even more.
So now we have corn and gasoline selling at record levels.
The price of corn already was driven up by a government policy to subsidize ethanol makers to the tune of 52 cents a gallon.
And the government is probably going to have to subsidize ethanol even more because with gas at 4 bucks a gallon, it costs a lot more to plant, grow, harvest and transport corn to the ethanol plant. Let's be honest. If there was no government subsidy, there would be no ethanol plants. They couldn't afford to make the stuff.
As the stock market suffers, so do the 401(k) plans of millions of Americans at precisely the time when the government is telling us we need to put more of our retirement dollars in the private sector.
They're telling us this, of course, because the Social Security Administration is teetering on the brink of insolvency because the government blew all the money in the "trust fund." (I love that they call it a "trust fund," as if we can trust them with it.)
The net effect of all this is that the economy grows slowly, if at all, inflation is back in play and unemployment rises as companies seek ways to lower expenses.
The government's answer? Send us all a check to spend.
The answer to the mortgage crisis? A $300 billion dollar "housing bill" to refinance homes at risk of foreclosure because people overextended themselves in the first place.
And government's talking about bailing out people who got themselves into credit card trouble, too.
All this is happening in the midst of yet another record budget deficit.
The White House announced this week the fiscal 2009 deficit will be $482 billion. Way to go, government!
If the forecast holds - frankly, it's probably optimistic - W will have set the records for the first, second, third, fourth and fifth highest federal deficits ever.
Remember, he - a conservative - was surrounded by conservatives most of the time he was in office. They were the freest government spenders in history.
Are you happy with the Iraq War as a matter of policy? Is the U.S. energy policy to your liking? How about the way government handles immigration, transportation, agriculture or health care? How about that war on drugs?
How about state government? Happy with that? Do you like the way they handled the property tax situation down at the state house?
Gub'mint - at all levels - consumes nearly half of everything you earn and redistributes some of it in schemes that help some at the expense of others. What's left is poured down the rat hole of bureaucracy. Do you feel helped?
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
That was Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Truer words never were spoken and they ring even more true today.
He understood, as does every good Libertarian, power and politics breeds greed, largess, corruption, waste and inefficiency.
The only way to fix it is to severely limit the power and scope of government, which is precisely what the guys who wrote the Constitution intended.
Sadly, I don't see that happening anytime soon.[[In-content Ad]]
I've been toying with labeling myself that way for quite a while now. I would say things like, "I might be a Libertarian" or "I think I could be a Libertarian."
But it's time.
I can't, in good conscience, call myself a conservative. Besides, there is no such thing as a conservative in Washington anymore.
I've been off a couple weeks and during that time I tried - tried - to avoid lots of news. It's a vacation.
But try as I might, I always found myself scanning the headlines, flipping on CNN for a while or surfing up news on the Web.
And what I've been hearing from John McCain and Barack Obama and the Congress these day is enough to drive a guy like me to that razor-thin line between sanity and psychosis.
Honestly, I am so sick and tired of hearing politicians - in either party - tell me that they are going to employ the government to make my life better, I could literally don a clown suit and head for the nearest tower with an AK-47.
How can they not get it?
The government isn't going to solve anything. It generally makes things worse while cannibalizing huge amounts of our nation's wealth and productivity.
It's pretty easy to see how our intrepid leaders have sold us out, all the while telling us about the wonderful things they are doing for us. When government tries to fix one thing, something else usually ends up broken.
Let's start the journey through the abyss of unintended consequences of government policy with the economy.
Seeing that the economy is foundering a bit, the Federal Reserve decides to cut interest rates.
Ostensibly, it was to curb inflation so people would have more buying power. People buying more stuff is good for the economy, to be sure. But only to a point.
Every policy has a tipping point, and I am pretty confident the Fed's interest rate cuts led us into all manner of ill economic outcomes.
Take the mortgage crisis.
Oh, sure, you can blame all those unscrupulous lenders who hoodwinked borrowers into biting off more than they can chew if you want to.
But was it really their fault?
What was in play that gave lenders the opportunity to offer mortgage loans at ridiculously low interest rates and drive the price of houses sky high?
That would have been the Fed cutting interest rates.
And while that makes for some really attractive monthly loan payments, it drives investors away from things like bonds and CDs. It discourages people from saving money. Simultaneously, it encourages people to spend money by keeping inflation artificially low and because credit card companies can offer a year's worth of 0-percent interest on balance transfers.
So - as a matter of government policy - you have in place a plan that encourages people to buy a bigger house than they can afford and stuff if full of consumer goods they can't pay for.
Nice.
And, as a policy maker, you would have to know that eventually those rates will rise, wouldn't you? And, when they rise, what do you suppose the likely outcome will be?
Mortgage crisis. People can't afford those homes anymore.
And as the crisis ripples through the housing market and banks and mortgage companies start to fail, investors get jittery.
The stock market takes a beating because investors start looking at commodities like gold and silver and grain and oil futures to invest in. Remember, you can't make any money in the bond market because interest rates are so low.
(And by the way, the interest rate cutting also drove down the value of the dollar against foreign currencies. This also helped boost the price of oil. And as foreign governments shy away from the dollar as an investment, it worsens our already insanely massive national debt problem.)
As investors flood to commodities, those prices - already rising because of other economic pressures - rise even more.
So now we have corn and gasoline selling at record levels.
The price of corn already was driven up by a government policy to subsidize ethanol makers to the tune of 52 cents a gallon.
And the government is probably going to have to subsidize ethanol even more because with gas at 4 bucks a gallon, it costs a lot more to plant, grow, harvest and transport corn to the ethanol plant. Let's be honest. If there was no government subsidy, there would be no ethanol plants. They couldn't afford to make the stuff.
As the stock market suffers, so do the 401(k) plans of millions of Americans at precisely the time when the government is telling us we need to put more of our retirement dollars in the private sector.
They're telling us this, of course, because the Social Security Administration is teetering on the brink of insolvency because the government blew all the money in the "trust fund." (I love that they call it a "trust fund," as if we can trust them with it.)
The net effect of all this is that the economy grows slowly, if at all, inflation is back in play and unemployment rises as companies seek ways to lower expenses.
The government's answer? Send us all a check to spend.
The answer to the mortgage crisis? A $300 billion dollar "housing bill" to refinance homes at risk of foreclosure because people overextended themselves in the first place.
And government's talking about bailing out people who got themselves into credit card trouble, too.
All this is happening in the midst of yet another record budget deficit.
The White House announced this week the fiscal 2009 deficit will be $482 billion. Way to go, government!
If the forecast holds - frankly, it's probably optimistic - W will have set the records for the first, second, third, fourth and fifth highest federal deficits ever.
Remember, he - a conservative - was surrounded by conservatives most of the time he was in office. They were the freest government spenders in history.
Are you happy with the Iraq War as a matter of policy? Is the U.S. energy policy to your liking? How about the way government handles immigration, transportation, agriculture or health care? How about that war on drugs?
How about state government? Happy with that? Do you like the way they handled the property tax situation down at the state house?
Gub'mint - at all levels - consumes nearly half of everything you earn and redistributes some of it in schemes that help some at the expense of others. What's left is poured down the rat hole of bureaucracy. Do you feel helped?
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
That was Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Truer words never were spoken and they ring even more true today.
He understood, as does every good Libertarian, power and politics breeds greed, largess, corruption, waste and inefficiency.
The only way to fix it is to severely limit the power and scope of government, which is precisely what the guys who wrote the Constitution intended.
Sadly, I don't see that happening anytime soon.[[In-content Ad]]
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