Here is a letter from my favorite man of letters, Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek:
Letter to the Washington Post:
E.J. Dionne praises Elizabeth Warren for “presenting government Wednesday not as an officious meddler in people’s lives but as an ally of families determined to help their children rise. Government, Warren said, ‘gave the little guys a better chance to compete by preventing the big guys from rigging the markets’” (“Bill Clinton’s tutorial on the need for government,” Sept. 6).
Ignore here the countless ways that government does meddle in people’s lives not only officiously but also obnoxiously – actions such as rampant imprisonment of non-violent drug ‘offenders,’ hiking the cost of food through agricultural tariffs and other farm programs, and abuse of eminent domain to enrich large corporations with property confiscated from middle-class families. Focus instead on the fact that Mr. Dionne’s “Progressive” view of government really isn’t so progressive. Its premise was known to, and rejected by, America’s founding generation. Here’s Thomas Paine: “Almost everything appertaining to the circumstances of a nation, has been absorbed and confounded under the general and mysterious word government. Though it avoids taking to its account the errors it commits, and the mischiefs it occasions, it fails not to arrogate to itself whatever has the appearance of prosperity. It robs industry of its honours, by pedantically making itself the cause of its effects; and purloins from the general character of man, the merits that appertain to him as a social being.”*
Thomas Paine and America’s other founders were never so naïve about the essence of government – nor as incognizant about the nature of society – as are Prof. Warren and Mr. Dionne.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Dr. Boudreaux,
I think you must be the last real “economist” left in the country maybe the world. It seams today that if it isn’t on Facebook or Twitter its not relevant — and for sure no one would read that “old” guy stuff what would any of them know …. lol
Or to paraphrase Mr. Paine in the current vernacular, YOU DIDN’T BUILD THAT!
In my lifetime, the government (always when there has been a GOP President) has taken taxpayer money to bailout large investor. St. Ronald of Reagan used taxpayer money to bailout large depositors in Continental Illinois Bank in 1984 as a bank failure might interfere with his re-election campaign. George H. W. Bush used taxpayer money to bailout his son Neil to the tune of over $1 billion. His son, G. W. Bush spent over $200 billion of taxpayer money to bailout investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paper (paper that was never a federal obligation).
I’ll take my chances with Prof. Warren over some GOP welfare queen anytime.
Assume Crony Capitalism is bad. That isn’t the point. She is the heavy hand of government who will stifle the economy.
wooooooshhhhhhh.
that was the point blowing over Barry’s head.
Barry, great Hip Hop spin! You would make an excellent contributor on CNN or on other Socialist outlets…
The Profess, is an affirmed Communist and as well as much of your state..
Twelve members to the House and not a single Repubco!!
Home to the wrecker of housing and the 2008 Frankcession..
Don’t ax don’t tell, but the Bushneck clan are closet Demcos too, they just have not come out yet…
BTW, most of your post was nothing but distortions of the facts, something the leftocrats do so well…
And Barry O bailed out GM to the tune of???? And how much money did he funnel to his crony friends at Solyndra et al? Yes Barry, your idol in more than name makes the Republicans look like candy-azz weenies. At least under Reagan we put over 11 S&L banksters in jail, under Barry o? ZIP, NANDA, None.
Now do not mistake my post for a defense of the right, for I think they are as much an admonination as our current Obamanation. They too have learned tp promise the free lucnh to everyone. And crony capitalism is now a dual party mandate it seems.
I don’t wish for pain upon this nation, but methinks it will take quite a bit to get the partisan hacks from both sides of the aisle to wake up to the destruction they have wronght unpon this country by blindly voting ideology and D or R, v. voting common sense and pragmatism.
That should have read 1100 S&L banksters above.
And furthermore, regarding Warren, I have some faith in her, but her defense of the current denizen of the WH just goes to show her own blind partisanship. She stood on stage and railed about banksters while her buddy Barry O kep them all out of jail. How quaint.