PrintFebruary 10, 2009
Cha Cha Change
Two items struck me today in the Wall Street Journal. In response to a comment that Obama made in January regarding the need for action by the government in order to jumpstart the economy, the Cato Institute ran a full page ad which reads as follows:
“With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true. Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s ‘lost decade’ in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.”
The ad appears in many national publications including the New York Times and Washington Post and it is signed by hundreds of economists including many well known scholars and Nobel laureates (Paul Krugman is conspicuously absent however).
The second item that caught my attention was an opinion by John B. Taylor, a professor of economics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, entitled “How Government Created the Financial Crisis." The opinion ends with the following observation:
“Massive responses with little explanation will probably make things worse. That is the lesson from this crisis so far.”
Why is it that Obama, his economic advisors, and the liberal Congressmen strong-arming the legislature into passing the “stimulus” package, all ignore the lessons of history? Here is the answer: not one of those individuals, entrusted with the welfare of America, cares about the lessons of history, the economy, or the country. They care about power.
Change is another word for the manifestation of power. In order to bring about change a person needs to be able to affect and control the status quo. In short, in order to produce change a person must have power. And, at least in the current situation, the purpose of the change is to transfer more power to the federal government -- and, thus, to transfer more power to the politicians currently in charge of the government.
When this bailout bill becomes law, the federal government will have more control over your life and more access to your wallet. The change you can believe in is the change missing from your pocket.
