‘Democrats have sown the wind and could reap the windbag’

Favorite politics-as-politics line of the day, from Kevin Williamson:

Democrats have sown the wind and could reap the windbag — or a Texas tornado

Kevin Williamson sometimes sounds about as sweet as a boiling bucket of bile, but other times—OK, oftentimes—the man has a way with words.  He has other great lines in this piece alone.

The Big Charter, in Brief

Happy 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta!

Four Reasons to Hold Elections on Election Day

1. Easier early voting opens the door to more fraud.

2. If you don’t care enough to go vote, you probably don’t care enough to vote well.

3. Longer voting periods mean more expensive campaigns, more money in politics, and more entrenched incumbents.

4. Voting early means voting without all the information.

Coloradan Sarah Hoyt is concerned about her state’s recent changes to its election laws.  Laws that make it “easier” to vote also make it easier to commit voter fraud.

News Flash: If You Decline to Vote, You Can’t Complain

NRO’s Jim Geraghty says, “God Save Us from the Loud ‘I’m Staying Home This Year’ Conservatives”.

. . . who will announce they’ll stay home on Election Day as a demonstration of their power.

Because as we all know, you become more influential in politics and government and public life by staying home and doing less.

He goes on.  I don’t completely agree with all of his points, but the main message is a good point, and an important one.  Casting a “protest” or “gesture” vote for a third party, or refusing to participate at all, is half a vote for the greater evil.

The Banality of Tyranny

An example of the kind of unconstitutional commandeering garbage that would have been unthinkable before the 17th Amendment destroyed vertical checks and balances:

Each state is required by federal law to have a Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) program.

When the federal government can tell the state governments what programs they are “required” to have, it’s not really a federal government any more.

Ohio Governor John Kasich Calls for National Balanced-budget Amendment

From COAST:

COLUMBUS – Frustrated by the increasing inability of Washington to responsibly manage the nation’s finances, today Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich called on states to lead the effort to enact a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  He also called for the Ohio General Assembly to help jump start the effort by passing a resolution calling for a constitutional convention that would approve a balanced budget amendment.

Repeal the Federal Deduction for State Taxes

National Review’s editors explain a creative potential solution to the “fiscal cliff” impasse:  Eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes.  Currently people can deduct, on their federal income taxes, the money they pay in state and local taxes; in effect, this forces taxpayers in small-government states to subsidize the big-government schemes of other states.  National Review:

Josh Mandel Takes BBA Pledge

It’s a small but important victory:  Ohio current state treasurer and Senate candidate Josh Mandel has just become the most prominent politician to date to take the People’s Balanced Budget Amendment pledge.

A month and a half ago, I discussed and recommended We Demand a Balanced Budget .com, which encourages people to take one of two pledges:

• Candidates pledge to work to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the U. S. Constitution if elected.

• Citizens pledge not to donate money toward, or otherwise support, any candidate who has not taken that pledge.  (Obviously citizens are still free to, and should, cast their vote for the more conservative candidate every time, regardless of whether he has taken the pledge.)

‘When conservatives contemplate what a liberal means by “functional,” we say “bring on the dysfunction, baby!”’

I ran across this while doing Internet searches and reading up on the American Progressive movement, and thought it was pretty well put:

When a liberal says our government is “dysfunctional,” what he invariably means is that it does not vigorously churn out the sorts of egalitarian, freedom-destroying legislation that will propel us (even more quickly) in the direction Europe has already traveled.  When conservatives contemplate what a liberal means by “functional,” we say “bring on the dysfunction, baby!”  The American system’s separation of powers, checks and balances, bicameralism, federalism, and pluralism routinely result in the government’s utter failure to get anything done.  Thank goodness.  While there are important things that need doing, nearly all of them fall in the category of “undoings”—undoing the achievements of all that “functional” government liberals love, which have made us less wealthy and less free.

The People’s Balanced Budget Amendment

Have you taken the Balanced Budged Pledge?

Problem: the federal government keeps spending more than it takes in:

One proposed solution: amend the Constitution to require that the budget be balanced every year.

Save Scott Walker

In 2011, Wisconsin and Ohio both passed laws repealing, to a significant extent, the mistake of public-sector unions.  (Public-sector unions are a relatively recent innovation; they necessarily create conflicts of interest and represent a structural problem for democracy.)  The Ohio reform was then itself repealed by ballot initiative, in a campaign funded largely by out-of-state union money.

Government Workers: Government Workers Don’t Work as Hard

Via COAST and the Washington Examiner, according to a Rasmussen poll, even government workers admit (46-32) that government workers don’t work as hard as the rest of us.  (The original Rasmussen report is apparently here, but full article available only with subscription.)

Note that federal-government employees are also paid a lot better for their lackluster work.

Acting Against Interest

I was reading a piece by a certain liberal columnist recently, and it struck me that the author, and other liberals I’ve heard, have two very different ways of thinking about voters’ acting against their (presumed, by liberalism) self-interest:

• If they’re poor or middle-class, and they support lower taxes and less spending on “entitlement” programs (i.e., they want to seize less of the property of the wealthy for themselves), it’s treated as some kind of bizarre anomaly that cries out for explanation (possibly involving staggering stupidity), even a moral failing (e.g., by Paul Krugman or blog commenter Snoodickle).

Spending Ceiling

Here’s an idea for structural reform (though not structural in the same sense as, say, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment), prompted by the discussion generated by a past post: a spending ceiling.

The idea is simple:  Congress would enact a limit on the annual federal budget, similar to the total limit on national debt (the “debt ceiling”).  Any time Congress wants to spend more money than it did the previous year (or rather, more than the existing statutory limit), it has to pass a law (duly agreed by both houses and signed by the president) raising the spending limit.  

Why the Welfare State Seems like a Good Idea; Trump; Roosevelt; Gingrich

Robert Tracinski explains a structural problem with (and leading to) Obamacare, and the welfare state generally:

. . . when the government bestows its largess, we tend [to] see only the benefits coming down from above: there are press releases and newspaper articles and a lady writes an op-ed in the LA Times. What we don’t see is where that money came from and who it came from, and what else we might have done with that money.  

What’s Wrong with the Welfare State

Eternity Matters discusses (with illustrations) why the welfare state is bad, not just in any particular execution of the idea, but intrinsically.  It’s short; read it—if not to believe and understand the world better, then at least to understand conservatives’ point of view a little bit better.

Issue 2 Needs You

It’s not too late to make a difference.  Get-out-the-vote efforts will continue through this weekend.  If you’re in Ohio, you can find a volunteer center near you—including address, contact information, and hours—on this map.

I know, I know—you’re busy.  So am I.  So is everyone.  I’m doing this in addition to my full-time job, church, campus-ministry volunteering, and everything else.  

Ohio Issue 2: Vote Yes for Reform

(Jump to provisions of new law)

I remember John Derbyshire arguing years ago that public-sector unions shouldn’t exist, in his top-ten list of “Necessary but Impossible” reforms:

Outlaw public-sector unions

Why do public-sector workers need unions? The purpose of unions is to protect employees against unscrupulous bosses, who might seek to maximize profits by taking advantage of those who work for them. In the public sector, however, there are no profits to be maximized, no shareholders to appease. The work that is being done is being done in the public interest — against which, as Calvin Coolidge quite correctly declared, there is no right to strike. So what do government workers need unions for? If public-sector workers don’t like their pay and conditions, they can appeal to the tax-paying public, who are their ultimate employers. If that doesn’t work, they can go get jobs in the private sector, and take their chances with capitalism, like free citizens of a free nation.  

Tea Party Debt Commission

Here’s an interesting idea: a Tea Party Debt Commission, organized by Freedom Works:

What is the Tea Party Debt Commission?

. . .

The Commission consists of 12 members, paralleling the structure of the new “deficit reduction super committee” created by Congress as part of the recent debt ceiling compromise.  Committee members are volunteer tea party activists and leaders . . . .  

Structural Reform: What Do You Think?

As I’ve discussed before, no matter how you measure it, government is big, and getting bigger all the time.  Comparatively speaking, Democrats are certainly the party of higher taxes, more spending, a greater regulatory burden, and more “entitlements”, but the government only ever seems to get bigger, under Democrats or Republicans.