This year is a very important one for small government Utahns. We have the opportunity to elect a candidate to the United States Senate who truly believes in limited government. A government, that is, which is focused more on protecting the natural rights of life, liberty, and property than in meddling in the private affairs of Americans in most aspects imaginable.
The year 2010 presents a time when Utahns can demonstrate to the rest of the country that Americans still favor individual liberty over government intervention; hard work and peace over welfare and warfare; personal responsibility and accountability over entitlements; a humble foreign policy over an interventionist one; and, free markets over centrally planned economies. In other words, it is a time for Utahns to stand up and be counted as the voice of small government.
As the great free market economist and political philosopher Ludwig von Mises stated in his essay Liberty and Property, “Government is not, as some people like to say, a necessary evil; it is not an evil, but a means, the only means available to make peaceful human coexistence possible. But it is the opposite of liberty.” Thus, while recognizing the importance of government, we must understand that the bigger the government, the less liberties we have, and vice versa.
More and more Utahns are coming to this realization as we have seen our liberties shrink time and again regardless of who is in power. The big government syndrome has infected our elected federal representatives in both the executive and legislative branch for many years, but Utahns and Americans in every state are fighting back. The anti-big government momentum, that really took flight during the 2008 presidential campaign, has only increased since then, and is manifested in many forms such as the Tea Parties, the formation of small-government groups on college campuses like the Young Americans for Liberty, the uprising of liberty-minded national groups such as the Campaign for Liberty, and the escalating interest in free market academia such as the works of Ludwig von Mises and Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek.
Our representatives, especially those who belong to that party which touts in its platform that it is committed to limiting the size of government, have greatly disappointed us, including Utah’s incumbent for U.S. Senate, Senator Robert F. (“Bob”) Bennett. Unfortunately, he has a long history of advocating measures which have significantly increased the power, scope, and size of the federal government to the detriment of the states, and most importantly, to individual liberty. At the same time, he has actively opposed actions which would rein in the federal government’s abuse of power and unconstitutional usurpation of individual liberties and states’ rights.
Below are only a few examples of the manner in which Senator Bennett has fed the glutton we call the federal government, since he was first elected to the senate in November 1992.
Socializing Medicine
Socialized medicine is a common feature of any big government. The Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and modern day European countries all adopted a form of socialized medicine. A government that takes over the health care industry can never be considered limited.
Ever since President Obama unveiled his form of socialized medicine in 2009, Republicans in Washington, including Mr. Bennett, have once again put on their cloak of conservatism, which was left at the mercy of the moths while hanging in the closet between 2001 and 2008. Now, all of the sudden, Mr. Bennett is up in arms about socialized medicine. Mr. Obama’s attempt to steamroll the U.S. into socialized medicine is certainly to be frowned upon by everyone. Economically, socialism in any form creates shortages of goods and services, increases prices, and decreases quality. Economic principles are simple and applied easily to socialized medicine.
Why then did Mr. Bennett not apply these principles to President Bush’s version of socialized medicine, the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Bill? The prescription drug bill constituted the largest expansion of the Medicare program since it started in 1965. Nonetheless, Mr. Bennett voted for it. According to 2005 estimations, this aspect of socialized medicine is projected to cost trillions of dollars.
Increasing Government Control over the Market
Economics teaches us that free markets allocate resources more efficiently, produce more goods of a better quality for lower prices, and provide a higher standard of living than any form of centrally planned economy. The United States was one of the freest markets the world has ever seen, but that has since changed. We are now, for the most part, a centrally planned economy…with some free market attributes.
Nothing can hinder markets like governments, and the bigger the government the more inefficient the economy. Mr. Bennett is no friend of free markets. For example, Bennett voted for TARP – that ominous law which provided for the bail out of Wall Street and the Big Banks. TARP took $2,333 from every single American man, woman, and child and gave it to the federal government’s partners on Wall Street and the Big Banks. In return, the federal government got…well…nothing (i.e., worthless assets).
Similar to his vote for TARP, one of the first things Mr. Bennett did when elected to Congress was to vote in favor of providing even more money to the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was the late 1980s, early 1990s bailout of the savings and loan industry.
Bennett also voted to increase the minimum wage…several times, including in 1996, 1999, and 2006. He also voted for an extension of federal unemployment benefits in 2008.
It does not stop there. Mr. Bennett voted to increase federal mortgage grants and federal mortgage limitations and he voted to increase the line of credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so they could buy up even more overvalued mortgages.
More? Mr. Bennett voted for Sarbanes Oxley. You know, that accounting bill which gave the SEC expanded powers over American business, but which resulted in firms leaving the U.S. for nations friendlier to business. Sarbanes Oxley has become one of the most hindering pieces of legislation to entrepreneurial activity this country has seen in recent history.
Senator Bennett also voted for NAFTA, that treaty which purported to be “free trade” in name only. Instead, NAFTA created a multinational governmental behemoth which oversees and governs trade between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. NAFTA even has its own court system whose authority can even supersede that of U.S. federal courts.
The list goes on and on. It almost seems that Bennett takes any chance he can to increase governmental control over the market. Now to be fair, Bennett has voted in favor of tax decreases, but his fiscal responsibility ends there, as he refuses to rein in federal spending. Simply put, Senator Bennett’s tendency to intervene in the market is inconsistent and directly contrary to what a small government conservative would do.
Deficit Spending
Since Bennett took office in 1993, the national debt has increased three fold, from approximately $4 trillion to $12 trillion. He strongly supported Bush’s agenda which required massive deficit spending and increased our national debt by two fold, from approximately $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, in a matter of only eight years. During that time he voted for nearly every major appropriations bill that contributed to the exorbitant debt, and he also voted to increase the debt ceiling several times including in 2006.
Small governments have small debt, and big governments are kept alive with debt financing. A small government conservative would know this, and would treat the government as he would his own household, by living within his means.
The Department of Homeland Security
Perhaps the most tactile representation of Mr. Bennett’s affinity for big government is the fact that he adamantly supported the creation of the first new department in the federal government since the Department of Defense was created at the end of the World War Two – which, by the way, also constituted the biggest increase in the size of the federal government in 50 years: Bennett voted to create the Department of Homeland Security, i.e., the Department of We-Will-Keep-You-Safe-By-Undressing-Old-Women-and-Children-With-Advanced-Scanning-Technology-and-by-Demanding-that-You-Show-Us-Your-Papers-Please. Ja wohl!
War
There is no getting around it: war is big government. At no other time can a government increase in size and scope as it can when it is at war. Unfortunately, since 1942, the United States has been engaged in perpetual war, and consequently, the United States government has grown exponentially.
Since Bennett has been in office he has been a faithful supporter of perpetual war, and correspondingly, of the big government that comes with it. He voted in support of sending the U.S. military to Bosnia-Herzegovina; he voted in support of giving the President power to deploy the U.S. military against any nation, including Afghanistan, that harbors terrorists; he voted in favor of attacking Iraq; he voted in favor of the indefinite occupation of Iraq; and, he
continuously votes away hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to continue to occupy “terrorist” countries.
Conclusion
Now is the time to for Utahns to realize that big government makes us poorer, less free, and more reliant on the state. Now is the time for Utahns to inoculate against the big government disease that has infected nearly everyone in Washington D.C. Now is the time for Utahns to declare that the principles of liberty on which the United States was founded still hold true. Now is the time to send Congress a message by advocating correct principles of government and ousting Senator Bennett. Let freedom ring.
Copyright © 2010 Jerry Salcido
Excellent article !!!