Big Government

The attempt by government to collect information on citizens has a long and troubled history. The lesson is that power, once granted, will always be abused.

The census is intrusive by nature, but the Clinton administration's version is brazenly pro-welfare, outrageously invasive, and costly even for states that supposedly benefit from its results. 

It was 1934, and government-caused mass unemployment supposedly was being solved by a near mass takeover of the economy by that same government. However, "Do you have a job?" was not the only important question that Uncle Sam had for his subjects. He also wanted to know, "Are You Training Your Child To Be Happy?"

That Nasa is a boondoggle and a socio-economic drain should be obvious to all. How does this bureaucracy continue to get away with it?

From the 1930s through the 1980s, government claimed it could innovate better than private markets. That' s what the boondoggles like TVA, Nasa, and Semitech were all about. Hardly anyone believes that anymore, so the rationale for government regulation of technology has changed. It now concerns such vagaries as fairness and wise resource use.

What's behind this new less-work-for-the-same-pay legislation is the 11.4 percent unemployment rate in France, a jobless rate that's been steadily expanded by the piling on of excessive labor regulations, government-mandated benefits and overblown taxation. The miracle here, if we're to believe the French socialists, is that an unemployment crisis that's been caused by too many government regulations will now be solved by yet another regulation.

Poverty, welfare and reason.

Created in the name of free trade, and even backed by some free traders, the World Trade Organization has become what its fine-print promised it would  be: a vehicle for economic planning.

Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, took a position that is extremely rare in state government. He said that neither the state nor the city nor any other unit of government should spend any money on funding yet another municipal ballpark or providing a taxpayer subsidy to professional ball teams and their media flunkies. "The taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for new stadiums," said Ventura.

Garet Garrett wrote in 1932, "Mass delusions are not rare. They salt the human story." Indeed, mass delusions are no more apparent than in the realm of public policy and especially in the faith people have in their government to carry out functions designed to promote the public good. How else to describe the persistent belief that government is a good steward of resources of any kind?