October 13, 2008

Government expansion

bellatoris:

squashed:

jeffmiller quoted Ilya Somin:

“I fear that the conjunction of an Obama victory, a strongly Democratic Congress, and a major economic crisis will produce a massive and difficult to reverse expansion of government.”

I would be more worried about this under McCain. This might seem counter-intuitive, but let me explain.

First, a massive and difficult to reverse expansion of government is, for all practical purposes, unavoidable. Bush will do it. McCain will do it. Obama will do it. McCain is nominally a small government guy—but when we have a crisis, his small government credentials go out the window. Obama, on the other hand, has been pretty steady through out this. He had advocated a moderate expansion, along with a host of tweaks, realignments, and efficiencies, and he’s pretty well stuck to the plan.

So given that it will be a rough four years for libertarians and fiscal conservatives, what do you want your government expansion to look like? Who do you trust to do things competently?

I see McCain hastily setting up giant, inefficient, and likely disasterous programs and departments. Once he makes up his mind, he’s not going to listen to anybody who disagrees with him. I see Obama as acting much less hastily, encouraging programs that get maximal results with the fewest resources, and rolling them out in a competent fashion. He will listen to objections from all sides—including the fiscal conservative/libertarian side and do what can be done to trim out waste.

Though I don’t entirely agree with the logic of who would create the better large government, I agree that we are probably stuck with an ever-expanding federal government regardless of our selection.

I feel like Julia Allison with everyone debating how big I am. This is making me feel a little self-conscious.

I’M WORKING ON IT!