The sad spectacle of political stalemate in the United States suggests that Americans are stuck with our current size and scope of government—and the lackluster economy that the government's strictures cause. Is the welfare state a tangled web from which no nation can escape?
Evidently not.
The whole gay rights debate has, by now, gotten so tiresome that most Americans, even liberals, wish the "love that dare not speak its name" would shut up. But the gay lobby has plenty of bucks, a narrow focus, and is easily offended, a combination that keeps candidate Clinton hopping.
Stuff those corks back in the champagne bottles. The Republican leadership in Congress can't celebrate the New Year until it breaks silence on the Mexican bailout. This is a debacle that makes subsidies for midnight basketball seem sensible.
Pigskin lovers and haters abound, but the ranks of football haters are swelling as more and more taxpayers are joining the chorus: "I hate football." In an attempt to lure football teams, local politicians are giving away the store on new stadiums, training facilities, rent subsidies, and sweetheart revenue deals. Even under the best circumstances, local taxpayers lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Gold Standard Act of 1890, which officially established the gold standard in America, was the culmination of a twenty-year battle between inflationists, who favored unlimited government purchase of silver (the "Free Silver" movement), and the advocates of sound money based on the gold standard. The inflationists were led by Senator John Sherman, author of the 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act (as well as the monopolistic Sherman Antitrust Act), brother of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.
Cheers to the governors of Alabama and Virginia for sending back millions of dollars earmarked for the "Goals 2000" program slated to be imposed on their states' schools. After decades of federal attacks on local control, they have responded to voter demands that school centralization be halted.
To this day Christmas remains a celebration of liberty and private life, as well as a much-needed break from the incessant politicization of modern life. It's the most pro-capitalist of all holidays because its temporal joys are based on private property, voluntary exchange, and mutual benefit.
Recycling has a high moral status, mostly because kids come home with bad information from schools and, in turn, use it to intimidate their parents. One poll revealed that 63% of kids have told Mom or Dad to recycle.
Parents, be ashamed no more! Throw that trash away.
If it had the will, Congress could kill the redistributionist monster, the Welfare State, that's consumed at least $5 trillion in wealth since the Great Society. How? Cut anywhere and everywhere, abolish whole agencies, and return the $350 billion saved from next year's spending to the taxpayers in the form of a tax cut of the same size.
We're no fans of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and now they know it. After Hurricane Opal caused substantial damage here in Auburn, Lew Rockwell wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times arguing that we'd be better off without post-disaster federal aid. Why should California taxpayers be penalized for our misfortune? he asked. He also had choice words for FEMA bureaucrats who use natural disasters to enhance federal control.
So the phone rang, and it was Morry Goodman of FEMA.
