From the Professors old friend Jerry Pournelle:
A Program
Getting the economy going again is important; the Democrats aren’t going to do it. The “stimulus” with its “shovel ready” jobs didn’t do it – indeed, the President was amused to tell us that the shovels weren’t as ready as he had thought. A near trillion dollar oops. The problem was that funneling the money to cronies didn’t do anything to rebuild the national infrastructure, which continues to deteriorate. A new stimulus won’t help that. The infrastructure can be rebuilt by state and local governments, and will have to, but to do that will require state and local government reforms: all levels of government are broke, and will stay that way until the economy improves. Getting the feds out of that act will stimulate the states to compete for jobs and capital – as Texas is already doing, extracting a lot of jobs and capital from Silicon Valley to Austin and other high tech regions in Texas. Competition among the states will reduce regulatory strangulation, but only if the feds stop throttling the economy.
There is a way to get started on this. Now.
I do hope that all the candidates will adopt this program:
Double the exemption numbers for small businesses: that is, whatever regulations you are exempt from by dint of having 10 or fewer employees, you will now be exempt if you have 20 or fewer; similarly for larger numbers. The regulations will still apply, but the exemption numbers are doubled.
Suspend Sarbanes-Oxley until it can entirely be rewritten. This glob of financial regulations was enacted in reaction to Enron. It doesn’t do what it was intended to do. There are said to be some good effects from it: let those be debated and reenacted. The stifling effects are obvious. The good points are a bit more obscure. It needs work, and until that time, it ought to be put out of the way.
Suspend Dodd-Frank until it can entirely be rewritten. This is another enormous act that was poorly thought out, and has had wide ranging effects that were not intended. The whole notion of financial regulations needs rethinking.
Repeal ObamaCare. If we need a new national health care plan, work on that; but this one isn’t going to work.
The Republicans can pass these measures in the House. They won’t be accepted in the Senate but the debates will be enlightening, and this will have a salutary effect on the Presidential election. ObamaCare was passed by a lame duck session with a reconciliation conference, without any proper debate. We have seen enough of Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank to know they are stifling: let them be defended in public debate.
The message will be that the Republicans stand for freedom, the Democrats for more government control. It is time to have the American people choose. Either we go down the road to Empire or we turn again toward a Free Republic. Rome had centuries of Imperial Glory after Augustus converted the Republic to Empire and Claudius set up the Imperial bureaucracy using freedmen. Competent Empire is a viable system of government; competent empires have lasted longer than most Republics. The United States at 235 years or so is a bit young compared to the Roman Republic which was around 400 years old at its collapse, and much younger than the Venetian Republic when Napoleon ended it. Britain became what amounts to an aristocratic republic in 1688. France in 1789. Britain and France seem destined to be absorbed in the bureaucracy of the European Union. We will see.
But the alternatives are stark here. Either we go back toward renewing the Republic or we slide further and further into rule by bureaucracy; and the remedy to that is generally empire. Turn to someone who can control the rapacious officials. One of our main complaints against King George III (really against the Parliament of Westminster) is that the king had erected needless Offices and sent among us swarms of Officers to harass the people and eat out their substance. Would we had only the customs and Stamp Act officers now!
http://jerrypournelle.com/jerrypournelle.c/chaosmanor/#programAnd for your musical enjoyment:
Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Boston Tea Party
