The present economic dislocation is frightening to many Americans, Libertarians included. In fact, Libertarians may be more scared than most people because Libertarians know that all the solutions being proposed by both the outgoing and incoming administrations will make things worse.
As wholehearted supporters of laissez faire capitalism, we are opposed to government ownership and control of private enterprises. We believe in low taxes, and in a government that reduces its scope (and spending) instead of growing like a cancer on the body politic. As followers of Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, we believe the individual economic decisions made by millions of Americans every day add up to more wisdom than a lifetime of government bureaucrats, czars, and legislators. Bluntly, we know from experience that there is no problem that cannot be made worse by government intervention.
That is why we are worried about the current recession. Both the President and the President Elect talk darkly of the need for “bold” action, to do something, anything.
Trouble is, the government has been “doing something” non-stop since passing the original bailout plan in October. Between bank takeovers, bailouts of the mortgage industry, and the quote-unquote “rescue” of the auto industry, Washington has been throwing gasoline on the fire for three months. Now President Elect Obama is threatening doom if we don’t pump even more fuel on the flames.
Libertarians understand that the government does not have any money of its own. Every dollar Washington bestows on Chrysler or Fannie Mae or AIG is a dollar that was taken away from a private citizen or company. Every dollar Washington spends in its efforts to control the economy is a dollar less available to private enterprise to hire new workers, upgrade machinery, or invest in the things a private citizen wants to support.
The new administration and the old media claim to be infatuated with Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘masterful’ handling of the Great Depression. What they really are in love with is Roosevelt’s expansion of government authority over more and more areas that used to be private matters. The facts are that the economy bottomed out after Roosevelt took office in 1933, improved somewhat for a few years, then fell back again in 1938. What brought full recovery was not Roosevelt; it was the productivity of private enterprise that rose to meet Europe’s need for industry and armaments after Hitler invaded Poland in 1938. While America’s entry into World War II in 1941 put millions of Americans in uniform, the economy already had re-stabilized. In a nutshell, it was private enterprise — not government — that finally solved the Great Depression.
If their real goal were to help citizens, politicians of both old parties would cut taxes to allow Americans to keep more of what they earn. Alas, what has the professional politicians drooling is what they see as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to increase their power by expanding the breadth of government control.
When Republicans and Democrats try to outdo each other with promises of federal spending, they are selling our children and grandchildren into slavery. As it is, the federal deficit has doubled since 2000; it will go even higher if Congress passes any of the other crazy proposals. On top of that, the Obama administration campaigned on a plan to nationalize health care, which will raise the spending even more. The deficit will be so huge that only a lifetime of exorbitant taxation will be able to pay it down. Our descendants will curse us every April 15th for being too weak to endure a cyclical downturn and instead pawning their future so that some self-aggrandizing politicians can say they “did something.”
