Yes, But Let's Go Big

but we'd have to give up the free stuff

Newt Gingrich, in his “American Despotism” series at the American Spectator, takes a look today at the Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson.

Johnson’s Great Society birthed a fundamental abdication of self-government, creating a nation under the rule of bureaucracies.

OK, but how do we change it?

Then Jeffrey Tucker joins the chorus demanding that we “audit the Fed.”

Yes, but central banking and big government go together like bacon and eggs. If we didn’t have big government and we didn’t need world wars — from World War I to World War COVID — we would need a central bank.

Then there’s the shocking fact that the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is funding its Green New Deal with monies stolen from Medicare.

IRA’s Medicare prescription drug reforms save the federal government $266 billion, but the savings are used to fund new climate spending, not reduce seniors’ pharmacy costs.

Wat? You mean to say that my liberal neighbors are getting their Teslas and other EVs on the backs of poor seniors like me?

The point is that if we are going to have big government spending about 36 percent of GDP a year then central banks and rob Peter to pay Paul and gigantic bureaucracy are all par for the course. Because the name of the game is to play the system so that you and yours get your share. And don’t forget “ten percent for the Big Guy.”

Newt Gingrich says that the absurd faith in experts manifest in the Great Society programs was a consequence of World War II when young educated experts like John Kenneth Galbraith went to Washington and won a world war. If they could do that they could End Poverty As We Know It.

Well, no. World War II is easy. Just crank up the central bank, draft all the boys, tamp down consumer spending, and build all the tanks and trucks and guns you want. Fight the Enemy. That’s what government is all about.

But educate kiddies, reduce poverty, help seniors with end of life health care. That’s different, and if you put government is charge the whole thing turns into a corrupt handout of free stuff, with ten percent for the Big Guy.

War is easy. Just get on your white horse and charge. But everything else? Not so easy.

And I would say that putting politicians in charge of society amounts to putting society on a war footing.

War on Poverty? What do we do with the dead and wounded?

War on COVID? How did that turn out?

Whip Inflation Now? That was President Ford’s brilliant plan in 1974. It didn’t work.

Here’s a Real Simple idea. If it isn’t a war, then government is the wrong guy to do it.

But how do we help the poor? How do we educate the kiddies? How do we help older people with health care?

Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work and work it out. All friendly like.

I’ll be the first to volunteer to give up my free stuff.

But whatabout saving the planet? I have to say, that the climate change grift really is brilliant. I mean, if the world really is coming to and end, then we must drop everything and print the money and draft the kiddies and take the bus to work.

But suppose the world is not coming to an end and CO2 at 0.04 percent of the atmosphere is not a problem?

Then, as the Frenchies used to say, it’s à la lanterne les enviros!