What is our National Economic Aspiration?
The Size of Government and the Choice This Fall
In polls, Americans overwhelmingly prefer small government and low taxes to the alternative. Yet they've been given big government, one program at a time.
What we must choose is our aspiration, not whether we want to zero out the state... finding the right level of government for Americans is simply impossible unless we decide which ideal we prefer: a free enterprise society with a solid but limited safety net, or a cradle-to-grave, redistributive welfare state. Most Americans believe in assisting those temporarily down on their luck and those who cannot help themselves, as well as a public-private system of pensions for a secure retirement. But a clear majority believes that income redistribution and government care should be the exception and not the rule.
I think it's very important that we do choose what we aspire to be as a nation. However, I also caution that *if* we aspire to be a nation with limited government interference in our lives, yet with government that does provide some oversight to make sure people are operating honestly, that the rule of law is established and people's rights are respected including property rights & privacy both economic and civil, and that necessary services which the private market place will in fact fail to provide as "public goods" in the economic sense of the term things like national defense, infrastructure, police & fire services, etc... then the Republicans are not necessarily the best choice to ensure that end.
Republicans have shown they too love big government, albeit in different ways than the Democrats. Republicans can tend towards wanting to interfere in your personal life on issues they consider to be "moral". They'd often like to dictate what a woman can choose to do with her body in terms of pregnancy even before the fetus has developed the capacity to have any sense of it's surroundings or awareness. They'd like to dictate what relationships are acceptable between consenting adults and which they will hand out rights and privileges under the law to based upon their religious understanding. They'd like to dictate what chemicals you can take into your body even if by doing so you are harming no one other than yourself, including being fine with some which are statistically more dangerous than others they take exception to and go on to ban all uses of including legitimate physician approved medicinal use. They have even in some cases intruded into your personal affairs with Big Brother-like draconian laws intended to aid law enforcement but which have a chilling effect on personal privacy.
These may not be the big issues of today, but they are important to bear in mind.
Today we're on the verge of a fiscal nightmare, and economic stagnation. We face the threat of an ballooning government bureaucracy, more invasive government meddling in your personal health care decisions, crushing tax burdens, and government playing favorites picking and choosing winners and losers in the private marketplace as handouts to their special interest groups instead of letting We the People decide what goods and services we desire most and letting those decision separate the wheat from the chaff. Important to remember, recent Republican governance did not address these issues, and in some cases made it them far worse.
The public's disgust with these issues is growing daily, and politicians have taken notice. Moderate Democrats are running from their own party and distancing themselves from Progressives, and Republicans like sharks have picked up the scent of blood in the water. The Republicans may be more trustworthy than the Democrats to tackle these current big ticket economic issues, but they do not necessarily represent the answer to our problems - as they have proven in the past.
Ideologically the Libertarian platform, which is only partially embraced by the Republicans as a subset of the party, is the only one to support both your personal civil and economic freedoms and liberties. But due to our entrenched two party system, voting for a Libertarian candidate may represent the loss of the chance to provide some check and balance against the current Democratic majority.
I will both share my mind writing about the issues I see as important, and respect that many of you who read what I write will have vastly different opinions from my own. I will never encourage anyone to vote in any particular manner, at the end of the day every man and woman has to make up their own mind as to what is most important to them and cast their vote accordingly. The only thing I would suggest, is that before you make up your mind, you try to do so from as informed a position as possible. Decisions we make matter at a local level, individual candidates matter more than party affiliation, principle does in fact matter. My sincere hope is that when you go to the polling station, you've taken the time to carefully consider who you choose, whoever that ends up being.
In polls, Americans overwhelmingly prefer small government and low taxes to the alternative. Yet they've been given big government, one program at a time.
What we must choose is our aspiration, not whether we want to zero out the state... finding the right level of government for Americans is simply impossible unless we decide which ideal we prefer: a free enterprise society with a solid but limited safety net, or a cradle-to-grave, redistributive welfare state. Most Americans believe in assisting those temporarily down on their luck and those who cannot help themselves, as well as a public-private system of pensions for a secure retirement. But a clear majority believes that income redistribution and government care should be the exception and not the rule.
I think it's very important that we do choose what we aspire to be as a nation. However, I also caution that *if* we aspire to be a nation with limited government interference in our lives, yet with government that does provide some oversight to make sure people are operating honestly, that the rule of law is established and people's rights are respected including property rights & privacy both economic and civil, and that necessary services which the private market place will in fact fail to provide as "public goods" in the economic sense of the term things like national defense, infrastructure, police & fire services, etc... then the Republicans are not necessarily the best choice to ensure that end.
Republicans have shown they too love big government, albeit in different ways than the Democrats. Republicans can tend towards wanting to interfere in your personal life on issues they consider to be "moral". They'd often like to dictate what a woman can choose to do with her body in terms of pregnancy even before the fetus has developed the capacity to have any sense of it's surroundings or awareness. They'd like to dictate what relationships are acceptable between consenting adults and which they will hand out rights and privileges under the law to based upon their religious understanding. They'd like to dictate what chemicals you can take into your body even if by doing so you are harming no one other than yourself, including being fine with some which are statistically more dangerous than others they take exception to and go on to ban all uses of including legitimate physician approved medicinal use. They have even in some cases intruded into your personal affairs with Big Brother-like draconian laws intended to aid law enforcement but which have a chilling effect on personal privacy.
These may not be the big issues of today, but they are important to bear in mind.
Today we're on the verge of a fiscal nightmare, and economic stagnation. We face the threat of an ballooning government bureaucracy, more invasive government meddling in your personal health care decisions, crushing tax burdens, and government playing favorites picking and choosing winners and losers in the private marketplace as handouts to their special interest groups instead of letting We the People decide what goods and services we desire most and letting those decision separate the wheat from the chaff. Important to remember, recent Republican governance did not address these issues, and in some cases made it them far worse.
The public's disgust with these issues is growing daily, and politicians have taken notice. Moderate Democrats are running from their own party and distancing themselves from Progressives, and Republicans like sharks have picked up the scent of blood in the water. The Republicans may be more trustworthy than the Democrats to tackle these current big ticket economic issues, but they do not necessarily represent the answer to our problems - as they have proven in the past.
Ideologically the Libertarian platform, which is only partially embraced by the Republicans as a subset of the party, is the only one to support both your personal civil and economic freedoms and liberties. But due to our entrenched two party system, voting for a Libertarian candidate may represent the loss of the chance to provide some check and balance against the current Democratic majority.
I will both share my mind writing about the issues I see as important, and respect that many of you who read what I write will have vastly different opinions from my own. I will never encourage anyone to vote in any particular manner, at the end of the day every man and woman has to make up their own mind as to what is most important to them and cast their vote accordingly. The only thing I would suggest, is that before you make up your mind, you try to do so from as informed a position as possible. Decisions we make matter at a local level, individual candidates matter more than party affiliation, principle does in fact matter. My sincere hope is that when you go to the polling station, you've taken the time to carefully consider who you choose, whoever that ends up being.
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