The case for limited government

Limited government.  Sounds like a scary right wing shibboleth.  After all, what is wrong with programs to protect workers, help the poor, build roads, defend our borders, or (insert favorite program name here)?  In the abstract, nothing.

The problem with large government or intrusive government is the power that inevitably devolves to those in positions of authority.

This example benefits a couple Democratic politicians, but understand that this type of abuse cuts both ways.  If you give people power they will use it to advance the interests of themselves and their friends. It is completely understandable and predictable. Doesn't make it right.

The story is a bit convoluted but basically a high muckety muck from the Department of Homeland Security used his influence to affect who would receive residency visas.  The lucky recipients had strong ties to Harry Reid in one case and Virginia Governor  Terry Mcauliffe in another.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dhs-exec-used-clout-to-favor-reid-mcauliffe/article/2561971

There is one solution to the problem of abuse of power.  Take away the power.  I could write a blog solely devoted to abuse of power by politicians and bureaucrats were I so inclined, but it wouldn't solve anything and it wouldn't tell us anything we don't already know.

If people are given power they will use it.  Fact of life.  Hardwired into our DNA.  This is why the Founders of our country believed in limited government.  Not small government because a small government will, over time, become a big government.  Limited government. Here's the stuff you have the power to do.  This and nothing more.  It won't eliminate abuses but it will minimize the areas in which abuses could occur.

If only Congress could cooperate

The day after the election I started hearing it again. The age old refrain from Democrats whenever they lose an election.

If only they could cooperate and compromise they could get things done.

I heard it in the staffroom at work.  I hear it from the Harry Reid.  I hear it from the media.  Funny how I never hear that when the Democrats have control and are winning elections.   It would appear that the word "compromise" has a special meaning in the minds of liberals.  It means "go along with what we want".  Sometimes it means "abandon your principles in order to do what we want", and occasionally it means "do what we want and we'll say nice things about you in the media".

Here's the problem, and the general direction of discussion that I had in the staff room (friendly thankfully as I work with a lot of really good people).

If compromise only works one way, it isn't compromise, its an abandonment of principle.

A few examples:

• I think that illegal immigrants should be blocked from getting jobs and deported if arrested for anything.  I think that no one here illegally should be allowed to access the welfare state or obtain any of the trappings of residency such as driver's licenses.  Many on the left think that illegals should be granted a "pathway to citizenship" and allowed to stay with some meaningless slap on the wrist.  Where is the compromise solution?  Some of them get to stay?  Most of them get to stay?  They get to stay if they haven't broken any other laws?  Any compromise is merely giving the left what they want, only less of it.

• I believe that the government has no business having departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, or Energy, just to name a few.  I do not believe that the Constitution grants the federal government any power over these aspects of our lives.  Each of these, and many more, areas of government rightfully belong to the States under our federalist system.  Many on the left believe that not only should the federal government be controlling these areas, but that the states should be completely subservient to these agencies of federal power.  Where is the compromise?  Do we have smaller version of the same departments?  In my mind those are un-Constitutional.  In order to compromise I have to accept a role for the federal government that is not supported by our founding documents.

• I believe that we, the people, have an unlimited right to keep and bear arms.  The purpose of this guarantee was to provide a check on the power of the government.  A people that have no response to the police power of the state have no freedom.  Many on the left believe that the government has a the only legitimate claim to violence and therefore only agents of the government should have access to firearms.  The compromise has been regulation on the ability of citizens to obtain firearms.  Background checks, bans on automatic weapons, short barreled weapons, sound suppressors, various cosmetic features, magazine capacity, etc.  It is a compromise that many firearm owners and Constitutionalists alike have been willing to support.  With 22,000 laws on the books regulating firearms, however, the left wants more and we are told that we should compromise.  When does it stop?  We have compromised to the point that I can only purchase certain guns and only with the permission of the federal government.  I am a law abiding, free citizen yet I am heavily restricted from exercising a guaranteed right.  Where is the compromise from the left?

• Recently the Democrats in the Senate introduced a Constitutional Amendment that would have gutted the primary protection of the First Amendment by giving Congress unfettered authority to regulate political speech.  What compromise should we accept here?  Political speech is already the most heavily regulated type of speech in our country, far more regulated than pornography, for example.

Harry Reid spoke out on November 5th about the election results and had this to say:

The message from voters is clear: They want us to work together. I look forward to working with Senator McConnell to get things done for the middle class.”

This from the most uncooperative Senate Majority Leader possibly in the history of our country.  The Republican controlled House passed hundreds of bills that never even had a committee hearing in the Reid controlled Senate.  If Harry Reid didn't like a bill, it died without a hearing.  Reid also led the move to eliminate the filibuster in many situations, preventing the minority from having a voice in Senate deliberations  This is not cooperation, it is dictatorship.  Democracy so long as you do what I want.  I don't deny Reid's authority to do what he did (although legally his elimination of the filibuster violated the Senate's own rules), but it is hypocritical to then claim that cooperation is king when you lose control.

Compromise always means that our policies move in a leftward direction.  More spending, more taxation, bigger and more intrusive government, more regulation on our daily lives, fewer guarantees of individual liberty.  Libertarians and conservatives rarely win these battles and when we do, when a party moves in a libertarian direction with an opportunity to make some policy decisions that would result in more rather than less freedom, the immediate response is "compromise and cooperate".  I, for one, am sick of it.  If we are truly going to start a new era of cooperation and compromise I want to see it from the left as well as the right.  I'm not holding my breath.  Whether it is tax increases now and spending cuts down the road, or immigrant amnesty now and border controls in the future, the concessions we are offered to support the liberal agenda never quite seem to happen.  As President Reagan said in a different context, "Trust but verify".  I don't believe it when progressives say they want to cooperate, and I don't believe that any aspect of a conservative agenda will be implemented under a "cooperative" Washington DC.  Their push for cooperation is a ploy to continue achieving their agenda.  The hell with that.

The Bechtloff gets it oh so very wrong

Just started listening to a new podcast by The Bechtloff and I love it. Very entertaining. He's a new Christian and he has talked about his struggles with the churches he has attended; he is a tech geek and talks about video games; he is a libertarian and talks about politics.  Well worth a listen if you have a hole in your schedule and want an entertaining listen.

Today, however, he completely missed the point.  He was talking about the Hobby Lobby case and the SCOTUS decision and took the opportunity to rip into conservatives for missing the point.  He claims that social conservatives are opposed to birth control and doesn't understand why they don't focus on the whole fiasco that is Obamacare instead of one little aspect.  So what did he get totally wrong?

One, Obamacare will never be repealed while President Obama is in office.  It would take a filibuster proof majority in both houses and that isn't going to happen.  Even bills that would modify Obamacare to make it less onerous have no chance of passage.  The House has passed several bills, including one that would have authorized the President to do what he had already done in postponing the employer mandate.  The Senate never took it up and the President threatened to a veto if it got to his desk.  Veto a bill that approves what he has already done. 

Two, conservatives who supported the Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby cases are NOT opposed to birth control.  Many of them may be opposed to abortion (a more relevant argument in the case of Hobby Lobby since this case only dealt with abortifacients), but mainly conservative support for these cases has to do with individual liberty.  Yes, liberty.  The First Amendment to the Constitution.  The one that says that we have freedom of religion.  The Affordable Care Act violated that freedom by mandating that American citizens pay for medical procedures that violated their religious beliefs.  The SCOTUS overturned that law (I know, not on 1st A grounds but overturned it nonetheless).  I don't know where B gets this idea that social conservatives oppose birth control.  The only people I know who oppose BC are Catholics and they are just as likely to be liberals as conservatives (Just ask the pope how he feels about Marxism).

In this case I think that B is conflating the ideas of individual liberty (can't be forced by the government) to opposition to what the government is forcing you to do.  So let me be clear.  Conservative folks want to be left alone.  Conservative folks don't want the federal government mandating every aspect of their lives.  We will support anyone who fights that type of government overreach, whether we agree with the issue or not.  I disagree with pot smokers.  I think it is bad for you.  I also voted for the legalization and I will vote for the decriminalization of other drugs if the issue comes up.  Government has no business making decision for us.  The purposes of government are and should be strictly limited and controlling personal choice in virtually any arena does not, in my mind, fall under those limited purposes.

That being said, listen to The Bechtloff's podcast.  It is worth it.

I guess this is timely

Well, time for the annual budget fights, where Republicans try to cut minuscule amounts from an out of control federal leviathan and Democrats accuse them of being draconian.  Kevin Williamson has a good post over at National Review about this but that's not the point I want to make here.

Oh, that reminds me.  Buy Williamson's book The End is Near and It's Going to be Awesome

Anyway...

the point was about government spending.  If you want a small c conservative/libertarian perspective, Cato Institute has put together a website called Downsizing the Federal Government.  In it you will see specific and targeted cuts that they have proposed, for programs that they feel are wasteful or NOTGB (none of the government's business).

A little aside about small c conservatism:  We are for limited not small government.  I have no problem with a stinking huge military if it serves the purpose of providing for the national defense as provided in the Constitution.  I have no problem with any of the items specifically delegated to the federal government in the Constitution being paid for and faithfully executed.  Everything else is, to quote the Constitution, reserved to the states or the people.  That means that mandating health insurance (not in the Constitution), Department of Education (not in the Constitution), Health and Human Services (nitC), HUD, Fannie May and Freddie Mac, etc, all nitC.  Get rid of them and get rid of the burden on the American people.  We shouldn't have to spend half our lives dealing with regulations and bureaucracy, not to mention having our wealth seized for the benefit of bureaucrats and special interest groups.

Democratic Party platform, 1840

For this, I would vote Democrat:

http://westernhero.blogspot.com/2012/12/holy-sht-im-democrat.html

Self Funding for Federal Agencies

Never knew this, but apparently many federal agencies are self funding, in other words, they don't need Congress to appropriate money so that they can operate.  This would seem to put them well above any Constitutional oversight. Although Congress could pass legislation to reign them in, it is much harder to pass specific legislation than it would be to change funding levels for an unnecessary or wasteful program.  It is these kinds of stories that remind me how out of control the federal government has become.

Here's more from Michael Greve:

http://libertylawsite.org/2012/12/11/run-government-like-business/

Why Do We Need Higher Taxes on Anybody?

Government revenue as a percentage of GDP is 35%.  It was only higher four times, ever, all in the past fourteen years.




Actual revenue is as high as it's ever been. 



We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.  If anything we need to lower taxes to stimulate economic activity, as well as cut spending dramatically to eliminate the deficit.

Who Knew?

Did you know that the political conventions of the two major parties are subsidized by the federal government?  I didn"t.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/315729/dinosaur-conventions-john-fund

Maybe it's about time that went away.  I know it's not a large amount but every little bit helps.


Update:  Looks like maybe $73 millionish per party

Limited government, not small government

Professor Hale put up an interesting comment on my last post.  He pointed out that a part of the problem here is that the government has any say whatsoever in who you hire.  Not only does this type of government interference represent a wide divergence from the principles that our country was founded on, it is the antithesis of true freedom.  When government gets to dictate how you run your business and with whom you choose to associate, you have little left.  The giant bureaucracy required to oversee these mandates consumes vast chunks of output to no productive purpose.  Requiring that I hire a representative number of whites, blacks, asians, gays, etc does not improve my business, and therefore does not improve my community by providing more jobs or income for the local population. 

So am I condoning discrimination?  Actually the market will deal with this issue without any help from the federal government.  If I want to provide the best product for the best price in order to maximize my own return, I need to hire the best people and I need to create and keep customers.  If I discriminate against the best workers due to some ridiculous standard like skin color, my productivity will decrease and I will be less able to compete.  In the long run, I either don't survive or I survive as a much smaller, less efficient, and therefore less profitable enterprise. Government mandates on the other hand interfere with this process by preventing me from hiring the most qualified regardless of skin color or some other artificial designation.

So is hiring the only area in which government interference becomes an issue?  Well, the second part of my last post, mandates on health coverage, now can be seen in a different light.  Why exactly does the government have any say at all in what type of health coverage I provide to my employees?  If they don't like the coverage I offer, are they  not free to go find a job that offers what they do want?  For that matter, why does health coverage have to be provided by employers anyway?  The main reason that most people currently get health coverage (I reject the words "health insurance" for our current system for reasons which I will discuss another time) is that the system has been tilted towards the employers by the federal government. They get a tax break for providing you with coverage, if you buy it yourself, not so much.  It is government meddling in the health care market that has driven up prices and made it so unaffordable.

There are countless other examples which I won't detail here.  The Department of Energy, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the list goes on and you can read the arguments for and against by checking out organizations like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation.  I will explain the title of this post, however.

Conservatives are often described as proponents of "small" government.  I believe this is misleading and wrong.  I don't think a "small" bureaucracy devoted to violating my right to freedom of association is the answer.  What really matters is "limited" government.  A limited government would not be interfering in hiring decisions, would not be mandating a particular kind of health plan, would not be deciding what kind of energy should be emphasized, what kind of mathematics education should be taught in local schools, or how many housing projects should be built in a city.  A limited government would do the things allowed it by the Constitution: providing for the national defense, controlling immigration, and those other duties specifically listed.  They should be as big as they need to be in order to effectively do those things. When we have limited government again, we will be a free people.  Until then, when the government can decide who we hire, who we fire, what goods and services we can or must purchase, with whom we associate and the limits of that association, we are not a free people.