United Liberty

Reason magazine editor Michael C. Moynihan and National Review editor Jonah Goldberg talk about governmental expansion of the American economy on Glenn Beck’s show.

To those “conservatives” who look to Rush Limbaugh as a spokesman for the cause of limited, constitutional government, this should silence any doubts as to where Rush stands when it comes to big government. His rant just about sums up everything that is wrong with what the “conservative” movement has become especially during the eight years of the Bush Administration (but clearly getting underway with the “Gingrich Revolution”). The so-called conservative movement is dead, and anyone who wants to understand why would do well to read Rush’s actual words here. I don’t think he was joking at all when he said, “It’s going to be a bigger, more powerful, stronger government — and we’re going to turn it against the left in ways they could have never imagined.”

In the Reason.tv talk show this month, which is hosted by Reason head honcho Nick Gillespie along with three other libertarian bona fides, four intelligent guys got together and basically said nothing. While they start off by talking about issues of substance like Obama’s election and the continued bailouts, they degenerate into a ten-minute discussion of who’s a real libertarian and which think tank is secretly libertarian.

Love him or hate him Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee speaks his mind with much greater candor than most politicians on Capitol Hill. But the last thing the economy needs is “a healthy dose of Keynesianism” as he stated. Does he not remember when he was in his thirties how John Maynard Keynes’ theories were proven to result in stagflation?

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey on the topic of the United States Supreme Court reveals some interesting statistics. It shows a majority of Americans believe decisions should be aligned with the written document as opposed to the primary other methodology of decisions, i.e. fairness & equality. While I am glad that a majority of Americans do agree in theory with libertarians & conservatives on this issue it is unfortunate that the percentage is not higher. With many polls showing “liberals” making up less than 15% of the electorate, one has to ask the question - where do the remaining 15% of the 30% of voters who think the nation’s top court should make decisions based upon fairness and equity come from?

Cato has summarized the 2007 Census data that was released earlier this week. While United Liberty of all political blogs will readily admit there are major problems with our economy - problems that stem from both fundamental policy choices & execution of policy - we need to make sure we do not play into the hands of the raging liberals who exaggerate every problem in society in order to achieve their political goals. Even looking at the situation from a non-ideological and pragmatic viewpoint, there is not any more reason to intervene in the economy today than there was a decade ago.

New Income and Poverty Figures Spoil the Pity Party

• The number and percentage of Americans without health insurance actually declined slightly in 2007 compared to 2006. The share without insurance in 2007, 15.3 percent, is actually lower than it was a decade ago.
• Median household income is not falling: “Between 2006 and 2007, real median household income rose 1.3 percent, from $49,568 to $50,233—a level not statistically different from the 1999 prerecession income peak.”
• The share of households earning a middle-class income of between $35,000 and $100,000 in real 2007 dollars has indeed shrunk slightly compared to a decade ago, but so too has the share earning less than $35,000 a year, while the share earning more than $100,000 continues to rise. The middle class is not shrinking; it is moving up.
• The 12.5 percent of Americans living below the poverty line in 2007 was statistically unchanged from 2006, and remains below the 13.3 poverty rate in 1997. The poverty rate has been trending downward since the early 1990s during a time of growing trade and immigration flows.
• The Gini coefficient, a statistical measure of income inequality, was .463 in 2007, down slightly from earlier in the decade and virtually the same as it was a decade ago.