Friday, February 17, 2012

Confused Santorum Conservatives

I think Paul Krugman gets things right in his post Moochers Against Welfare. He  writes:
Rick Santorum declares that President Obama is getting America hooked on “the narcotic of dependency.” Mr. Romney warns that government programs “foster passivity and sloth.”...


 Many readers of The Times were, therefore, surprised to learn, from an excellent article published last weekend, that the regions of America most hooked on Mr. Santorum’s narcotic — the regions in which government programs account for the largest share of personal income — are precisely the regions electing those severe conservatives. Wasn’t Red America supposed to be the land of traditional values, where people don’t eat Thai food and don’t rely on handouts?...
The truth, of course, is that the vast bulk of entitlement spending goes to the elderly, the disabled, and working families, so any significant cuts would have to fall largely on people who believe that they don’t use any government program.

The message I take from all this is that pundits who describe America as a fundamentally conservative country are wrong. Yes, voters sent some severe conservatives to Washington. But those voters would be both shocked and angry if such politicians actually imposed their small-government agenda.
Of course, Krugman fails to discuss the one group that is consistent in its political beliefs and personal beliefs, Ron Paul followers.

3 comments:

  1. Feel free to pass this on to Paul Krugman

    http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/agletter/2010_2014/february_2012.pdf

    Thank you for all you do.

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  2. I read Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" over 30 years ago. I know Friedman's not the most popular "libertarian," and indeed the book had some bad things in it like support for school vouchers. However, the most important overarching thread of the book is that democratic government is systemically biased toward big-government. There's almost nothing you can do about it.

    There's a huge incentive for lobbying for government loot to those who receive the cash. The profit from this venture far exceeds the cost of the lobbying, yet the cost of fighting any individual lobbied subsidy far exceeds the individuals' cost of just paying the ransom.

    Friedman also had this great table. On one axis the table was labeled something like "Your Money", and "Other People's Money". The other axis had "Money spent on yourself," and "Money spent on other people." Government spending was the absolute worst case where other people's money was being spent on other people. There's no incentive to keep costs down or to get the most for your money.

    The only hope for this country it to elect Ron Paul, and even that is a longshot. He'd have to convince lots of people to go back to a true republic with absolute blank and white adherence to the U.S. Constitution devolving power back to the states. Even that wouldn't bring a libertarian society by any stretch of the imagination, but it would be a huge improvement over today's mess.

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  3. I got nauseated watching Santorum yell at the protestors at a stump speech in Washington, "why don't you get out there and get a job?"

    Well that would be great if there were any Rick.

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