One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Cato Institute fellow Daniel Mitchell has a piece here comparing the Bush presidency unfavourably to the Clinton presidency. I won’t quote the article because it is a detailed piece that deserves to be read in full.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Bush presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for libertarianism in America. Whatever one’s views on Iraq, it certainly didn’t represent a philosophy of decreasing the level of state power. About the only positive thing on the Bush Jr. record, from a libertarian point of view, is the tax cuts. Unfortunately the cuts were fuelled by enormous budget deficits and a looming fiscal crisis thanks to Social Security.
The article makes the point that Clinton’s record would have been a lot worse had he not had to deal with a hostile Congress. If I were a betting man, which I am, my money would be on either Obama or Clinton to capture the White House in 2008. With Democrats in charge of Congress, we are unlikely to see things get any better from a fiscal point of view. At least the social conservatives might get squashed back into the hole from whence they came.
Speaking of the ascendancy of the Democrats, does anyone have links to any of the myriad articles and posts I remember reading from a couple of years ago about how the Democrats were a hollow shell of a party on the verge of catastrophic collapse? I’ve been Googling, but so far without success.
John Quiggin praises libertarianism
John Quiggin is a prolific blogger, Queenslander and Economist. He is also a self proclaimed Social Democrat. I know that several of the participants here on the ALS blog also visit Johns blog from time to time. Recently as part of a charity fund raiser John agreed to shave off his beard and write a short essay on what he finds commendable about libertarianism. It is not quite cash for comment because he insisted that he would only say what he actually believed.
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