State Budget & Debt

Susan Gaztañaga, Libertarian for Governor of Maryland

Balancing the State Budget and Reducing the State Debt


The problem.
The Maryland state budget for 2011 is over 32 billion dollars. In 2010, the Department of Legislative Services (DLS) estimates a deficit of $1.318 billion, rising to $1.487 billion next year. The deficits will fall to the $800 million-$1 billion range after that. In total, between 2010 and 2014, DLS expects the state to suffer a combined $5.718 billion budget deficit under current revenue and spending projections. And those numbers include revenues from slots. (Source: Maryland Politics Watch). The state debt is over a billion dollars. (Source: 2010 Commission on State Debt Report).

What I will do.
1.     As a symbolic first step in restoring the tradition of true public service, I will reinvest $90,000 of the Governor’s $150,000 yearly salary every year towards reducing the State debt.
2.     As a short range measure, Doug and I will look at ways to consolidate functions among the 92 large and small agencies of the Maryland State Government. Internal services such as human resources management, information technology, budget and finance, contracts and procurement, communications/public relations, audit, and legal counsel could be shared, at least among agencies with similar missions (e.g., Education and Higher Education, Agriculture and the Environment, etc.).
3.     Ultimately, government programs and subsidies to nongovernmental organizations will have to be cut back. I will review every function or service of the state government, asking one question: “Could these services be better delivered by private enterprise on a fee-for-service basis?” The elimination of publicly funded services will occur in tandem with tax cuts, so that Maryland tax payers will have the means to obtain the goods and services they need and want from providers of their choice. This approach will have the added benefit of creating real jobs and stimulating the economy. Doug and I are not beholden to any corporate or union interests, and are therefore free to make and implement the common sense decisions that our Democrat and Republican opponents dare not make.
4.     Other principles of fiscal responsibility:

• Whenever a new bond issue appears on the ballot for approval it must state the total cost to the tax payer including all interest payments.
• All budget shortfalls will require budget cuts and can’t be financed by tax increases.

Q&A: What's wrong with "stimulus" spending?

Date: Mon, 08/16/2010
Author: Mark Grannis

One of my best teachers admonishes me to do more than preach to the choir. Specifically, while many people already deplore the Bush-Obama bailouts and stimulus bills, there are others (including Paul Krugman and many of his readers) who still believe, or at least hope, that aggressive overspending will restore the economy to vigor. What can I say to stimulus supporters to change their minds?

I can’t do justice to such a big question in a blog post; for that the reader must consult the works of the many economists who do not share Professor Krugman’s view of the world. Some of them, like F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman, also have Nobels to their credit. They don’t happen to write in the New York Times, which is a shame for all of us. But if you haven’t read their views somewhere, you should seek them out. Here, here, and here are three good places to start.

I’ll emphasize just two points here: First, we have evidence that stimulus policies are not working and have not worked in the past. And second, if we consult our own experience of what makes us spend or invest or hire, we see that heavy government involvement in the economy not only fails to “stimulate” much economic activity, it actually makes us less likely to take the kinds of actions that are necessary in order to get the economy back on track.

We’ve been allegedly “stimulating the economy” nonstop since 2002, through massive deficit spending and an unprecedented amount of easy money from the Federal Reserve which kept interest rates low despite the red ink. But the first overt “stimulus” bill that I recall in the current downturn was President Bush’s $168 billion version in February 2008. This, you’ll recall, was the program by which we borrowed money in order to mail ourselves checks and take ourselves out to dinner.

Next, skipping over a few smaller bailouts, we had the Bush administration’s bank bailout bill of October 2008. For that, we authorized another $700 billion. In addition, many in Congress resisted a $700 billion bank bailout but signed on after it was linked to a $150 billion tax cut that passed at the same time.

Then we had the massive spending spree that the Obama administration packaged as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, for which we borrowed another $787 billion. And since then, smaller mini-binges for automakers, appliance manufacturers, etc. (A comprehensive listing is here.)

What have we stimulated? Unemployment is higher today than it was before we did any of this, and most economists are not expecting things to get much better anytime soon.

These results corroborate the experience we had with stimulus policies during the Great Depression. President Hoover tried everything to stimulate the economy from 1929 to 1932, but nothing worked. Even the unprecedented stimulus policies of FDR’s New Deal didn’t do the job. Not until after World War II – when government spending fell precipitously in 1945-47—did our economy get healthy again.

Even Japan’s experience with stimulative fiscal policy gives us reason to doubt its effectiveness. As a group of 300 economists stated in a joint letter they signed in opposition to the first major Obama stimulus bill, “More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's 'lost decade' in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.”

But stimulus defenders, particularly those belonging to the Keynesian school, can make the (untestable) claim that things would have been worse without the stimulus spending; or that the reason earlier stimulus attempts failed was that they weren’t big enough. That’s pure ideology, but it’s not impossible, so let’s turn to a couple of important theoretical reasons for questioning the Keynesians’ story.

People who aren’t actually engaged in business often look at the economy as a collection of aggregate statistics like GDP and the unemployment rate. Those aggregate statistics don’t affect real-world economic behavior like spending or hiring. Think: Do you make your purchasing decisions based on GDP or the unemployment rate? Or do you consult your personal circumstances? One of the central insights of libertarian economists is that no matter how many people’s actions you’re trying to examine, every single person in the group will act “at the micro level,” that is, based on his or her own desires, resources, opportunities, and alternatives. We can’t change what economic actors are doing just by goosing government statistics with extra spending.

New productive activity, like starting a business and hiring some people, occurs only when individuals can predict a good return on their investment. So imagine that you’re a recently unemployed chef, and you’re wondering whether to wait things out or use your savings to open a new restaurant. You know there’s a lot of competition, but you’re confident your food will be tastier than theirs. You also know that some people won’t want to pay what you want to charge, but you realize you don’t need to win every customer in order to succeed financially. Looking only at your potential customers and your potential competitors, you’re convinced it’s a good idea.

But there are other risks you can’t evaluate as easily. You understand your taxes may go up at the end of this year, and your profit margins were already pretty tight to begin with. You may even get hit with a soda tax. You know your health insurance costs are going up, even if you don’t understand when or how. You keep seeing horrifying charts of what the Federal Reserve is doing to the money supply, and you worry that once a recovery actually comes, inflation may make your costs rise uncontrollably. And you keep hearing that government might regulate the transfat content of the food you serve. Because these things are all controlled by government rather than by you or your customers or your employees, they’re not only outside your control, they’re beyond your power to predict. So you sit tight, because of what economists call “regime uncertainty.”

In this environment, it could hardly matter less to you whether the government is or is not spending, say, another $26 billion to plug holes in municipal government budgets. You don’t know how much of that money will come to your community, or what your municipal government will do with it, or what will happen next year if the funding isn’t renewed by the next Congress. If the success of your restaurant depends on that, it’s not a risk you’re willing to take. It’s a safe bet that lots of people will always like good food at a fair price, because they always have. But there’s just no telling what Congress might do—particularly a Congress dumb enough to borrow money to destroy cars. (View a nice video on "cash for clunkers" here.)

The government could try to stimulate the opening of restaurants with a new-restaurant-owner tax credit, and that might stimulate you. But it might not, because you’re not going to open the restaurant at all if it’s only profitable in year one when the government is subsidizing it. And in any event, the restaurant stimulus bill isn’t going to create any more certainty for your neighbor who is wondering whether to hire another salesperson at his bookstore. On the contrary, the more the government meddles, the less attractive most private investments become.

Stimulus spending is not entirely without effect, of course. If you happen to run a business that supplies what the government is buying, you’ll profit handsomely. (Our recent fiscal and monetary policies have been very good for banks, for example.) But the people who take in all the hot money aren't as dumb as Congress seems to be hoping. They know the sudden increase in the demand for their services is artificial, and they know the government can’t keep spending this way forever. So they’re unlikely to change their behavior very much based on something they expect to be a one-time windfall. They’re more likely to salt the money away for the rainy day they have every reason to expect soon. And that's one reason why banks, who are supposed to be in the business of lending money, have not been lending money.

Many 8th District voters know exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of us have done very well as a result of the increasing concentration of power and money in Washington. But it’s bad for the country, and ultimately nothing that is bad for the country can possibly be good for the Washington suburbs. Not in the long run, anyway. And with our national debt above $13 trillion mark, our unfunded future debts above $45 trillion, and both numbers rising briskly, the “long run” may be shorter than we think.

We have to shrink government,whether we want to or not.

Over the last ten years, Democrats and Republicans alike, in Congress and in the White House, have borrowed and spent us into the worst economic conditions in living memory. The government only admits to an unemployment rate of just under 10%, but surveys and better private estimates show that about 20% of us who want full-time work can't find it. The unprecedented amount of paper money we're pumping into the economy is not actually creating jobs or generating wealth.

That's bad enough, but a recent study from the Bank of International Settlements gave us the really bad news: Our total national debt and our future entitlement liabilities, taken together, are so large that we will be in danger of national default (like Greece) unless we take drastic action immediately. How drastic? The BIS estimates that in order to achieve the very modest goal of taking our total debts back to 2007 levels over a 20-year period, we would need to move from a deficit equal to 7.1% of GDP, to a surplus of 2.4 % of GDP, and keep the budget that way for 20 years. That would require almost $1.4 trillion per year in deficit reduction, starting now. That's some serious budget-cutting.

Unfortunately, our elected officials are not yet having a serious conversation (at least not in public) about how we're going to cut spending consistent with our national priorities. Here are some conversation starters:

End the Bush/Obama bailout and stimulus policies. We should never have gone down that road, and no one should be surprised that these policies didn't work; after all, if it were possible to get richer by going deeper and deeper into debt, we wouldn't have experienced a downturn to begin with. Now that we know the policy is a flop, we need to swear off any so-called "stimulus" programs -- no more "cash for clunkers," "cash for caulkers," or cash for any other fill-in-the-blank interest group. We also need to restore some necessary fear of failure on Wall Street by repudiating the "Too Big to Fail" doctrine and declaring that the era of No Banker Left Behind is over.
Get rid of corporate welfare and other gimmicky tax credits. These tax credits proliferate under Democrats and Republicans alike because they're easy to hide in our sprawling 5.5-mllion-word tax code, and people don't usually pay a price at re-election time for giving away tax breaks. But the fact is that Congress routinely uses the tax code not just for the legitimate purpose of raising revenue, but for the less admirable purpose of throwing bones to politically connected interest groups. One recent estimate says these "tax expenditures" amount to about $1 trillion per year.
Scrub the budget with Article I in mind. We need a federal government that stays within the limits of the dozen or so powers that are granted in Article I of the Constitution. Toward that end, we should demand that Congress specify in each spending bill precisely which part of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to act in that area. A few hints: Bank bailouts and investments in failing automakers are not in Article I. Neither are free colonoscopies or free prescription drugs.
Eliminate, transfer, or privatize programs we don't need. Farm subsidies are a great example of this. They were originally conceived as a way to help farmers survive low food prices, at a time when farmers typically had lower incomes than non-farmers. Now, however, farmers are on average wealthier than non-farmers, and in 2003 55% of the subsidies went to just 6% of the recipients. Yet we still spend $30 billion per year on these subsidies. The Cato Institute figures we can save $108 billion per year in the Department of Agriculture alone. Cato has some other great ideas for savings as well.
Sunset everything. Here's the good news: If you were starting from scratch and your job was to think of enough important government functions to cost $3.8 trillion dollars per year, you would almost certainly fail. You couldn't possibly dream up that much government, let alone that much necessary government. Thus, the budget problem is not that there is not enough money to fund the things we need; it's that there is so much money sloshing around in Congress that our representatives have not been very diligent about insisting on a strong showing of need each and every time a program is reauthorized.
Refocus defense spending on defense. We've gone too long thinking that fiscal policy and foreign policy are entirely separate issues. The fact is that we cannot afford our worldwide empire. I say much more about reorienting our military commitments elsewhere, but suffice it to say here that the amount we need to spend on defense is much less than the amount we currently spend.

Mark Grannis
Libertarian for Congress, Maryland District 8

Q&A: Do Libertarians oppose civil rights laws?

Date: Mon, 08/02/2010
Author: Mark Grannis
Earlier this year, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul drew unfavorable press attention for his remarks about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Even though Paul is a Republican, his libertarian sympathies led some people who had never paid much attention to libertarians to ask whether we are soft on racial bigotry.

Do libertarians really believe that all civil rights legislation was wrong? Would we repeal the laws protecting voting rights and desegregating public accommodations if we could?

For “the short answer,” let me start with Section 3.5 of the Libertarian Party platform, which “condemn[s] bigotry as irrational and repugnant” and adds, “Government should not deny or abridge any individual’s rights based on sex, wealth, race, color, creed, age, national origin, personal habits, political preference or sexual orientation.” The preamble likewise states “that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world.” Libertarians want a government that is radically neutral toward its citizens. Libertarians therefore proudly support laws like the Voting Rights Act that protect political equality, as well as those provisions of the Civil Rights Act that banned discrimination in voter registration practices and prohibited racial segregation in government agencies, public schools, and other public facilities.

But what about the part of the Civil Rights Act that banned private discrimination? That’s where Libertarians draw attention to the downsides of government intervention. Laws banning private discrimination can be justified on libertarian principles, but probably only as a response to the historically unique issue of race. To understand the pros and cons of anti-discrimination laws, let’s look a little more closely at our Constitution and our history than either Paul or his critics did.

Race in Our History

The actual history of the fight for civil rights in this country is not the good-government fairy tale in which some cable celebrities seem to believe. Their story seems to be that 1964 was the year an enlightened government finally ended 350 years of private discrimination by immoral individuals. That is wildly misleading. The truth is that during those 350 years black Americans were victimized first and foremost by governments. Governments treated African-American slaves as sub-human until 1865. Governments treated runaway slaves like lost property that had to be returned. Nearly a century after the Civil War, governments still treated black Americans like second-class citizens, and governments looked the other way and refused to protect black Americans from violent attacks on their lives, liberty, and property.

Meanwhile, classical liberals like William Lloyd Garrison—people who today would be called libertarians—agitated privately for racial justice. These proto-libertarians attacked slavery as “man-stealing,” a violation of the slave’s self-ownership. And the latter-day civil rights movement behind Martin Luther King was a model of powerful non-violent witness by individual citizens who refused to accept the injustice of their laws. Governments did not lead that movement; governments were more often aiming the firehoses and loosing the dogs.

The story of the Civil Rights Act, then, is not that pure-hearted legislators finally prevailed over wicked owners of segregated lunch counters; it is that individuals with a thirst for equal justice under the law put their very lives on the line for racial equality, and in so doing they finally shamed Congress into exercising its constitutional power to stop state governments from treating blacks as second-class citizens.

Race in Our Constitution

Sadly, most non-lawyers have never heard of Congress’s express constitutional power to secure political equality for Americans of all races, but that power was granted to Congress at the end of the Civil War, in the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 1 of that Amendment finally extended citizenship to black Americans and prohibited states from depriving freed slaves of the full equality to which they were entitled. Section 5 of that Amendment stated, with remarkable breadth, “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” That’s what the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was doing.

Unfortunately, Congress also claimed, unnecessarily, that the Act could be justified as a regulation of interstate commerce—and that’s what has raised concerns among people who favor small government. Constitutional law typically respects precedent, so each expansive interpretation of government power in one case paves the way for further expansions in other cases. An expansive use of the power to remedy racial discrimination can easily be limited to the historically unique issue of race; but an expansive use of the commerce power necessarily expands Congressional power over activities that have nothing to do with race or any kind of discrimination.

For example, if Congressional power over commerce is broad enough to justify laws that force sellers to sell to certain buyers, then it is presumably also broad enough to force buyers to buy from certain sellers. And there’s nothing hypothetical about that; just this spring, we saw Congress invoke its commerce power to require all Americans to buy compulsory health insurance. Likewise, if Congress can regulate the racial composition of a business’s employees under its commerce power, then Congress can presumably also use the commerce power to regulate what those employees are allowed to earn—another encroachment on economic liberty that is unfortunately no longer hypothetical. Other bills in recent years have relied on the commerce power in order to place federal limits on how much carbon we can emit, or how fast we can drive. Thus, Congress’s invocation of its commerce power to pass the Civil Rights Act was pregnant with the possibility of even more intrusion on private action in the years ahead. That would not have been true if Congress had relied only on its power to implement the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Price of Purging Prejudice

With that historical and constitutional context, we can finally get to the heart of the controversy over Rand Paul’s remarks. No true libertarian can be soft on racial bigotry; we are zealous in our defense of each individual’s right to equal justice under law. But we pay dearly with our liberty if we cede to Congress the power to compel economic transactions between unwilling participants. Many libertarians believe that the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on government-sponsored segregation would have been sufficient to end private discrimination throughout the south. We can’t know for sure, but if so then it was unwise to expand federal power that way. And in any event it was unwise to expand the federal commerce power when a more specific power to combat racial discrimination was already in the Constitution. Our historical experience of how power corrupts tells us that the individual liberties of all Americans would be safer today if we all recognized that the Civil Rights Act was entirely about racial equality, and was in no way typical of the kind of power Congress should exercise over private businesses.

Racial discrimination is our nation’s original sin; the greatest stain on our founding and the cause of our bloodiest war. We are a better society because of civil rights legislation—not as good a society as if racial discrimination had never existed, but that option was not on the menu for anyone alive today. The libertarian insight is that our willingness to let government depart from strict neutrality—to let government be non-neutral toward bigots—set a precedent that made government more powerful and our liberty less secure. Acknowledging that, and showing an appropriate wariness about government power, is the least we owe the memory of those who suffered so long under government-sponsored racial aggression.

Libertarians call federal worker pay gap 'appalling'

WASHINGTON - Recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that federal government workers get compensation, on average, more than twice as high as private-sector workers. That gap has expanded dramatically over the last decade. Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle released the following statement today:

"The numbers are appalling. In 2009, the average private-sector worker received $61,051 in total compensation, but the average federal government worker received $123,049. There is no excuse for this enormous, and growing, compensation gap.

"I guess you just can't beat a federal job. Very high pay, unbelievable benefits, extremely generous retirement plans, and near-perfect job security.

"And those retirement plans are often unfunded pensions, which will have to be paid by taxing our children and grandchildren, who never had the opportunity to vote when they were created.

"Apparently wishing to add insult to injury, government employee union reps have claimed that federal workers are entitled to their sky-high compensation because they are more educated and skilled than the rest of us. I have had many personal experiences with federal employees that indicate the exact opposite.

"The problem is that federal worker compensation is not set by the free market -- it's set by government fiat, which causes it to be artificially generous. Another factor is the monopoly government employee unions, which are able to extort that compensation up to even higher levels.

"One sure sign that federal employees are overpaid is that they never quit. Tad DeHaven of the Cato Institute has noted, '...in 2009, private sector employees quit at a rate that was more than eight times higher than federal employees.... This indicates that federal employees recognize that the generous combination of wages, benefits, and job security is hard to match in the private sector, so they stay put.'

"Libertarians support minimum government and maximum freedom. Unfortunately, federal employees have incentives to make government bigger, which makes us less free. With government employment paying more than the private sector, the rational self-interest of many workers will drive them to seek employment with the federal government.

"That's a formula for disaster.

"Libertarians want productive people working in the private sector to build our economy, not working for the government and hurting our economy.

"I would like to see an across-the-board pay cut for all federal workers. That would reduce federal spending, reduce the deficit, and reduce the insult to American private-sector workers. It also just might encourage some federal government employees to quit their jobs and seek more productive work in the private sector."

For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.

The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.

Obama and the oil spill

Libertarian Quotes

"It's illegal to say to a voter "Here's $100, vote for me." So what do the politicians do? They offer the $100 in the form of Health Care, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Food Stamps, tobacco subsidies, grain payments, NEA payments, and jobs programs."

– Don Farrar - average guy, age 51

Libertarian Quotes

"One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt."

– Lee Iacocca

The Lion of Liberty Award

I would like to present the first ever Lion of Liberty Award.  This is bestowed upon those individuals who stand on the fronline in the war between statism and freedom.  Those who, despite constant criticism, threats, and willingness to put their names on the line, stand firm in their principles and fight for Liberty regardless of political affiliation. 

Based on those qualifications Mike and Julie Brewington are presented with the Lion of Liberty Award and shall forever be known as Lions of Liberty.

In June Mike decided to run Wicomico County Council At-Large.  He hails as a conservative Democrat and often uses the phrase "raise chickens not taxes."  His wife Julie decided run for Maryland House of Delegates in District 38A.  Both have been deeply involved in the Tea Party movement and the Americans for Prosperity. 

Establishment politicians and their attack machine have launched some of the nastiest personal attacks on them for their political stances and willingness to fight to make difference.  I for one applaud them and thank them for their work.

Thoughts from Jefferson

"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none."

    –Thomas Jefferson

Libertarian Quotes

"A nation that expects the government to prevent churches from burning, to control the price of bread or gasoline, to secure every job, and to find some villain for every dramatic accident risks an even larger loss of life and liberty."

– William A. Niskanen, For a Less Responsive Government, Cato Policy Report,

Q&A: Do we need government regulation to keep consumer products safe?

Q&A: Do we need government regulation to keep consumer products safe?

Date: Mon, 08/09/2010
Author: Mark Grannis

Government regulations are so pervasive that many people assume without question both that the regulations are helpful and that they are necessary. However, once we challenge these assumptions, we see that government regulation is frequently not only unnecessary, but futile or even counterproductive. Rather than pretending that government always knows what’s good for us and what’s not, Libertarians prefer to let individual consumers decide which products they trust. Not every product on the market is safe—but that’s true even of products the government has declared to be safe, and we’re better off knowing that the responsibility rests with us.

A recent question I received about expanding the FDA’s role in regulating cosmetics illustrates the point. The question came with a link to this video, which argues that there are too many toxins in personal care products like shampoos and deodorants, and that the FDA should be given new authority to ban the use of toxic ingredients in these products. The video is well done, and I really encourage people to watch it and consider the “toxics in, toxics out” message when they’re buying consumer products. But the video claims that additional FDA regulation will be more effective than relying on consumers to do the right thing. That argument just doesn’t wash.

First, the makers of the video assume that FDA regulation will make our shampoos safer, even though we’re talking about regulations that have yet to be written, sometime in the future. But wait a minute: Didn't the same video tell us a moment earlier that the cosmetics makers had captured the government regulatory process and had subverted it so that everything was now allowed in? Yes! So why should we expect regulation to work better the second time? We shouldn’t.

It doesn’t even matter why the manufacturers escaped regulation the first time around. Maybe industry produced scientific evidence that genuinely convinced Congress or the FDA’s experts that there was no need for regulation. Or maybe the case for regulation was pretty strong, but government listened to the industry and its lobbyists because they were paying close attention to the rulemaking process while the rest of us were off living our lives. Either way, there is good reason to expect the same result the second time around.

Second, the makers of the video assert that we cannot address this problem without FDA regulation. But here the video contradicts itself by pointing out that “green chemistry” for consumer products is already a flourishing field. Why is it flourishing? Because there's a market for non-toxic consumer products! Tom's of Maine, Seventh Generation, Kiss My Face—there are lots of brands on the market that attempt to make us clean and shiny without using toxic chemicals. What government agency should we thank for that? None. It was private enterprise.

The video suggests private enterprise won’t work here because a single consumer can’t affect what P&G puts into its shampoo. But when the video turns to the lawmaking process, suddenly the narrator is one of many people who all want the same thing. Where were all these people when P&G was figuring out what to put in the shampoo? Why wouldn’t a group of consumers big enough to get Congress's attention be big enough to get P&G's? Shouldn’t it be easier to get P&G's attention, since P&G makes lots of shampoos without requiring any one of them to be favored by more than 50% of all voters?

The answer is that the government doesn’t require the assent of 50% of all voters either; it responds to small groups of people who are zealous enough and influential enough to pull the right legislative and regulatory levers – the infamous “special interests.” Thus, the real case for government regulation of your deodorant is not that you and I and all our neighbors can join hands and rein in P&G; the real case is that a relatively small group of people who focus on the toxicity of consumer products think they can choose your deodorant better than you can. Libertarians don’t think that’s good enough.

Third, we can never eliminate the risk of mistake, so individuals should have the freedom to balance risks as they see fit. Governments may approve unsafe products, or ban safe products, or conduct decades of tests that fail to produce complete consensus. Statists argue that this uncertainty makes it necessary for government to take the decision away from us because we have imperfect information. But that ignores the existence of videos like the one I’m critiquing—which in fact does an excellent job of informing us about potential risks. It’s true that I can’t evaluate toxicity on my own, but it’s not true that government is the only source I can turn to for help.

Moreover, this problem of imperfect information is not limited to the decisions we make as consumers. If ’m not smart enough to know which shampoo ingredients are toxic, then I’m also not smart enough to know whether an FDA action permitting these chemicals is a good decision or a bad one. That means I have to rely on others for my information either way; the only difference is that with the free market I end up with the ability to weigh the information, make my own decision, and live with the consequences. I may be left with an uncertain and somewhat dissatisfying tradeoff, with pros and cons for each choice, but that’s a lousy excuse for asking the government to take the choice away from me.

Finally, some argue that leaving the market unregulated will mean that rich people can buy more expensive "green" products that not everyone can afford. But wait: If price is the only reason someone is currently not buying a green shaving cream, how is government regulation going to help? Government regulation will not make the green product cheaper; on the contrary, it will make the green product more expensive, both by adding new costs of doing business and by removing marketplace alternatives that the FDA doesn’t like. Thus, the real effect of regulation here is to make the average joe spend more on green shaving cream whether he wants to or not. Folks who want FDA regulations are saying the average joe is a fool not to spend his money on green shaving cream now, so they’re going to remove other shaving creams from the market to protect him from his own folly.

But what if the average joe is not a fool? What if he just thinks other items in his budget (more food, a nicer apartment, cholesterol medication) are more important? What if the right shaving cream for Joe to buy depends on what’s important to Joe? Libertarians think we ought to let Joe sort that out.

Kick starting the green economy

Libertarian Quotes

"The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government."

– Ayn Rand

Libertarians oppose record federal spending levels

WASHINGTON - The White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently released its Mid-Session Review. On reviewing the report, Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle called the report's spending projections "disappointing and troubling."

According to the report, federal spending was 24.7% of GDP in 2009, and is expected to be 24.6% this year, rising to 25.1% in 2011. (All years are fiscal years.)

Hinkle commented, "The federal government is commanding a larger percentage of our economy than it has at any time in American history, except a few years during World War II. Instead of free citizens making our own economic decisions, the federal government is making those decisions for us."

Hinkle added, "At the beginning of the twentieth century, the federal government spent less than five percent of GDP."

The report projects that federal spending will still be over 23% of GDP in the year 2020. "In other words," said Hinkle, "the White House is admitting that its spending will be at record-high levels as far as the eye can see. That's great for special interests who get their money from the federal government, but it's very bad news for the rest of us.

"I'm seeing visions of low economic growth and high dependence on government. Future generations are facing economic hardship instead of prosperity.

"The current crop of politicians in Washington simply don't have what it takes to reverse this damage. Democrats and Republicans have proven decade after decade that they are incapable of doing anything but grow government. In just the last ten years, they have worked together to give us two costly wars, a giant Medicare expansion, and the TARP bailouts, among many other massive new expenses.

"It's time for American voters to start thinking outside the box, and electing Libertarians to office."

For more information, or to arrange an interview, call LP Executive Director Wes Benedict at 202-333-0008 ext. 222.

The LP is America's third-largest political party, founded in 1971. The Libertarian Party stands for free markets and civil liberties. You can find more information on the Libertarian Party at our website.

Once in a while Patrick Buchanan is right

"With all that IMF money, the Thailand's and Mexico's are spared the consequences of their fiscal incompetence, and Wall Street's heavy hitters are spared the consequences of their stupid investments. The global economy is a rigged game, rigged so Third World politicians, rich investors and global corporations win – and U.S. taxpayers lose."


– Patrick J. Buchanan

Libertarian Quotes

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

– C. S. Lewis

Revitalizing Downtown Salisbury needs to go to the next level

The revitalization of Downtown Salisbury has gone through numerous studies by various groups over the years. There are a variety of opinions on what will work, what has failed, and how to go about it. In my opinion there are several factors that are key in successfully accomplishing this goal.

First, there needs to be an anchor business that will draw people there such as a Trader Joes, Whole Foods or another nationally recognized business. These are two businesses that could really bring people there. Also, secondary anchors such as an Apple Store or Pottery Barn are businesses that will bring people from all over Delmarva here.

Secondly, closing downtown Salisbury to traffic is another key component. This will create an atmosphere such as Santa Monica's Promenade. As a part of this the city should allow restaurants to have more space for outdoor dining and allow food stands in peak traffic time.

Third, create an enterprise zone and tax benefits through the county and city to entice these businesses to come here. It is small price to pay when you are able to help create jobs and boost the economic condition of this area of town. This will also help make it even more desirable to live downtown and help create a strong customer base.

Fourth, I encourage Mayor Ireton to personally contact these companies and invite them to our city with open arms. The Mayor needs to be the economic champion for our city and aggressively approach companies to do business here.

Lastly, bring back the movie theater but make it a multipurpose center. Whether it is independent films, classic movies, concerts, we need entertainment downtown on a consistent basis.

We all recognize the importance of creating a unique image for Downtown Salisbury that will retain her classic charm. Third Fridays is good start and I applaud Mayor Ireton for championing that. It is time we take the next step.

Dr. Richard Davis August Letter to the Editor

Albert Einstein reportedly said that doing the things you've always done the way you've always done them while expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

For a long time we've focused on candidates' ability to raise campaign funds and use those funds to advertise to get name recognition as a way to judge their strength as candidates. They raise and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from other people. Then, when they are elected and go to Washington, we expect them to be careful with our tax dollars, which the IRS collects for them at minimal (if any) effort to themselves.

If you really expect a candidate to be careful with your money, maybe you should look at how he treats it during a campaign. I don't want your money for ads and campaign literature because I think that's wasteful, especially in an economy where money is tight for so many people. If you want to contribute, give money to a local cause of your choice in honor of my campaign, so it will do some good locally in any case.

If elected, I will do my best to take the same approach -- making every effort to limit what money goes to Washington to begin with, keeping money for local and state projects in those areas where it needs to be used. Meanwhile, for name recognition I depend on those who read this and agree with me to spread the word.


Dr. Richard J. Davis

Michael Calpino Letter to the Editor

Benjamin Franklin said that no matter what, only two things in life were certain -- death and taxes. There is usually little we can do when our number comes up, but with our taxes, particularly in a representative republic, we should have some say. We all know that at some level, we pay taxes to receive certain benefits from our government: a judicial system, police presence and basic infrastructure.

Of course, we also get an army of overpaid bureaucrats, bridges to nowhere and redundant programs that generate more waste and problems than they solve. We hate to see our money squandered, but it becomes doubly offensive if we are forced to pay "more than our fair share."

The municipal tax differential has come up again, and again, municipal residents are being forced to pay extra for redundant services. The county's excuse to deny them? Any extra money they pay goes into the school district. Why should city residents pay more for the schools than others? Can't our county officials see the inequity of taking more than is required from some taxpayers for any reason?

If the cashier at McDonald's kept your change, wouldn't you be upset? The tax differential is just and right; it should not be dismissed by the county out of hand. We do not exist to serve the insatiable appetite of government and it is wrong to require some to sacrifice more of their flesh to the beast than others.

Michael Calpino