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Shall We Save the Economy … or the Government?
Vin Suprynowicz
Lew
Rockwell.com
Tuesday, Dec 02, 2008
Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt – the latter continued
and amplified the former’s policies in a kind of one-two
punch, as revealed in Murray Rothbard’s The Great Depression
– did all the wrong things from 1930 to 1938.
In an environment of surplus labor but collapsing capital and
credit, free-market entrepreneurs put people back to work by hiring
men at low wages (giving them the pride of honest work, and the
chance to make more as their skills improve) to make things consumers
will buy at new, lower prices – can-openers, washing machines,
chicken wire, whatever.
Instead, Roosevelt and the Democrats, especially, taxed the heck
out of the greedy capitalists – taking away the loot they
might have used to hire men at low wages, and eventually even
banning the practice.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Our kids are taught in the mandatory government youth camps that
Roosevelt’s New Deal “ended” the Great Depression.
When? In 1935? In 1936? Unemployment went up, not down, from 1932
to 1937.
My mom is a lifelong Democrat. “But Vin, Roosevelt put
people back to work when there were no jobs,” she has always
insisted. “They planted trees. They built parks and playgrounds.”
A great example of “what is seen and what is not seen.”
The money to pay the men in the Civilian Conservation Corps came
from “taxes on the greedy rich.” (Let us not hear
of “fairness.” Since Bill Gates receives the same
degree of protection from the U.S. Navy as the guy who sleeps
under the bridge, the “fair “ share of the bill would
be the same for each man. If you want Bill Gates to pay more,
at least be honest and call it “his unfair share.”)
But once the money was shifted from private investors to Uncle
Sam, there was no longer any incentive for those doling out the
cash to put people to work making things that would provide a
“return on investment” – things people would
buy.
So most of those government jobs involved planting trees, cutting
trails, building log cabins and installing nice mosaic tiles in
the subway stations – things that are shown to have minimal
economic value by the fact pretty much no one would ever pay to
enjoy them. It was all a giant boondoggle, totally non-productive
in any economic sense. (What is the secondary market in “trails”?)
Let us now savor a delicious historical irony. The folks about
to be sworn in in Carson City and Washington City this coming
January do not have the excuse of ignorance, because the historic
example of 1930–1939 stares them in the face. Yet it appears
they are about to do the same thing.
President-elect Obama and the Democrats vow to “tax the
obscene profits of the greedy rich” and use the proceeds
to “put young people to work” in some kind of big
Homeland Security Domestic Peace Corps, handing them green funny
money to build windmills or “solar farms” that will
generate 15 percent of the power we need (if we’re lucky),
which will then to be made to look “affordable” by
effectively banning far less expensive nuclear and coal-fired
power plants, the latter in order to “halt global warming,”
which is minimal, harmless, comes in regular cycles, and is not
caused by mankind.
Then, their pals the Greens will file lawsuits, preventing construction
of the transmission lines needed to get even that minimal power
to market.
It’s perfect!
(You had a question on global warming? See this. Derek Kelly
also has it about right: “Instead of reducing CO2, we should,
perhaps, be increasing it. We should pay the smokestack industries
hard dollars for every kilogram of soot they pump into the atmosphere.
… Rather than bringing us to the edge of global-warming
catastrophe, anthropogenic climate change may have spared us descent
into what would be the most serious and far-reaching challenge
facing humankind in the 21st century – dealing with a rapidly
deteriorating climate that wants to plunge us into an ice age.
… All life glorifies warmth. Only death prefers the icy
fingers of endless winter.”)
Meantime, up in Carson City, Nevada Gov. Jim “No New Taxes”
Gibbons prepares to make himself a one-term governor by signing
onto a hike in the state’s hotel room tax, which is –
beginning to notice a pattern here? – precisely the wrong
thing to do.
Nevada has entered a recession. Visitor volume is down. That’s
our problem.
Our problem is NOT that reduced tax revenues make it difficult
to keep paying every arrogant functionary on the government payroll
all the raises and benefits they’ve been promised. That
falls more properly into the column of “unforeseen benefits.”
To solve the REAL problem, we need to turn Las Vegas and Nevada
back into a bargain destination.
What the Legislature thus SHOULD be talking about in their special
session in Carson City Dec. 8 is legalizing bordellos and hashish
bars in Clark and Washoe counties. But given the utter lack of
vision and courage evinced by our current political class, that’s
a non-starter. On to Plan B:
To spur economic recovery, slice back the gaming tax by 2 to
4 percentage points, and then eliminate the hotel room tax, all
airport landing fees and taxes, all rental car taxes, etc.
This means government, which has been growing without limit for
50 years, would have to be pared back.
That’s so easy you can do it at home. Close every office,
department or program that Nevada didn’t have in 1958. (Can
you remember anyone complaining in 1958 that Nevada “didn’t
have enough government”?) If that doesn’t save enough,
try 1908.
Closing down the Department of Motor Vehicles, alone, would make
headlines around the world. “Nevada gives up license plates!
Not much difference seen in traffic patterns!”
If any of these programs are “mandated by the federal government,”
sue at the U.S. Supreme Court, demanding that the federals either
drop these mandates or fully fund them. If we lose, eliminate
the programs anyway. After all, we’ll no longer have any
money to pay for them. If the Supreme Court wants to try levying
the taxes, let the justices go from Nevada business to Nevada
business, rattling their begging bowls and threatening “There
will be consequences!”
To be free, the slave must first refuse the master’s gruel.
Meantime, what’s the biggest single state government expenditure?
The government schools, which proudly turn out quasi-literate
graduates who can’t name a dozen U.S. presidents and who
evince a lifelong aversion to “ever picking up a damned
book again.”
But the state constitution requires state funding for only one
high school per county. So eliminate school compulsion beyond
age 14, and close at least two thirds of the high schools in Clark
and Washoe counties, making admission to the remaining schools
by competitive examination.
Allow our best government-school teachers – the ones who
won’t be laid off because principals will hand-pick them
for retention based on how well they’ve been doing with
the kids – to say, “You’re the best of the best;
for each of you sitting here today there are two other kids out
building windmills who’d love to be in this classroom. So
if any of you aren’t willing to sit up straight, maintain
good order and work hard to make the taxpayers proud, raise your
hands now; you’re free to go; we’ll call someone on
the waiting list.”
Ask any dedicated teacher how that little speech and a select,
“all-volunteer” student body would change things in
his or her classroom.
The answer is more freedom, lower taxes, and lots less government.
What was the question?
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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