Less Government

Less government? What a crazy idea! Especially in these political times considering the economy, the price of oil, the Iraq war, and of course the promises of a Presidential campaign. We all know or have even experienced the inefficiencies of Government run programs. Government programs are notorious for having agencies watching agencies which are watched by yet another agency to ensure compliance and not performance. This is sheer madness! Read Robert Freer’s article below to see why maybe (don’t get your hopes up) the Senate is coming around to believing that less government is better.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

“So you think money is the root of all evil? ...Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for money. Money is not the tool of the moochers who claim your product by tears or of the looters who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil? …To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more…And when men live by trade-with reason, not force, as their final arbiter- it is the best product that wins the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability- and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money.” (Francisco d’Anconia, Atlas Shrugged.)

It is two weeks later, and I am still muttering about Maxine Waters’ threat to expropriate Shell Oil, and by implication other American oil companies because they cannot promise a solution to our current energy cost dilemma without more crude oil. I could pass it off as the ranting of a maniac, but the whole context of the current presidential race, the seeming indifference to or ignorance of the impact of accepted economic principles on our economy; the lessons of history regarding our need for military strength, and the public’s glazed eyed enthusiasm for whatever the weekly position the Liberal candidate might be peddling has me spooked.

Liberals in their confidence that they will prevail in November have even abandoned any attempt at consistency in their rush to say just what a particular audience wants to hear. Senator Obama a couple of week’s ago went from telling a West Coast audience that Iran wasn’t a serious threat on a Friday to telling AIPAC early the following week that it was, and he would “protect Israel.” I’m not sure the military that Obama envisions could defend my sister let alone this country or Israel, but while these issues are important, they pale in comparison to the damage that would occur as a result of the expansion of government that would accompany an Obama presidency. Such an expansion is neither good for our liberties nor our pocketbooks.

Government is one of the most inefficient, corrupt ways to distribute goods and services. It currently represents just over 20 percent of our GDP, but that money does not add wealth to our country. It is not the result of the production of new wealth it has produced for the nation. It is taken from each one of us through taxes and fees to provide for, at its best, functions that Congress asks it to perform that cannot ( in their opinion) efficiently be performed by the private sector. At its worst, it is arbitrary income redistribution which takes from those who are most productive and gives to those who are favored by one political constituency or another. It is heedless of the effectiveness of the well over 300 billion dollars that is given freely by tax payers annually to those who are in need.

Government assistance is inefficient because it views each task not only in terms of accomplishing the stated objective such as aid to flood ravaged citizens but in terms of a wide array of congressionally and Court demanded requirements of how the aid is to be provided. It is corrupt because it is inescapably political in nature.

Efficiency is no where in the equation. Each step along the way, every political group of any consequences gets its nose into the government agency process to slow it down, politicize its outcome and minimize its beneficial affect. That is “The Government Way.” Then of course there are the other agencies that have no other function but to watch the agency perform and monitor their function. You’ve got the point. It has ever been thus and that is what has to change.

Contrast this to private enterprise’s quick response to provide additional assistance to other areas of the country than their own in emergencies and the dedicated response of NGO’s that are off to the rescue at the first hint of a problem. The Nation is still outraged at the confusion and lack of cooperation among state, local and federal governments in their response to Katrina. While NGO’s, churches and thousands of just ordinary folks immediately gave of their time, their shoe leather and billions of their dollars to reach out to the area and are still doing it, the only hold-up these good hearted Americans found was government inspired roadblocks by some bureaucrat whose only excuse for being there was to slow them up.

While we certainly aren’t a purely capitalist state, and government restrictions have taken their toll. The “freer” market (no pun intended) we do have, proves every day its ability to efficiently, cost effectively provide for the needs of our great country while providing a surplus for its owners, shareholders and employees to use to further extend the blessings of our liberty.

The task for government is not to “solve” the challenges facing us in the economy by taking the responsibility onto itself, but together with NGO’s and the private sector to unleash the inventiveness and energetic genius of free enterprise to find creative free market inspired solutions that will become progressively less expensive under the influence of the market system.

Just as Bill Gates earlier this year called on business to tackle the needs of those billion people worldwide that are currently below the threshold of normal commerce, government’s role must be radically changed to get out of the way of free market efficiencies. I note in this regard that even the U.S. Senate after years of failure in operating food services on the Senate side of the Capitol is not immune to getting the point. They have just decided to follow the example of The House of Representatives, which for years has successfully contracted out those services at both a qualitative and cost advantage to the taxpayers. That is the way to do it!

Copyright © 2008 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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