Townhall: Daniel J. Mitchell: 'Is America Doomed to Becoming a Failed European Style Welfare State'

Source:The New Democrat

One thing I tend to agree on with Progressive economists on is that there isn't any magic number to attach to how big the public sector has to be or how small it has to be that is the signal that government is too big and must be trimmed down. Before the Great Recession, America was doing very well economically for about 25 years, with a few slow-downs in between and periods of high unemployment, with our public sector to Gross Domestic Product ratio somewhere around 20 percent. The European Union as a whole did well economically also, especially Germany, with its public sector to GDP ratio around 45 percent during the same time period. And Scandinavia, among  the biggest governments in the developed world during the same period, grew well at around 65 to 70 percent.

When it comes to economic growth and the public sector, it is all about what you need government to do. What do people need to do for themselves and what do government and the people need when it comes to resources to be able to do for themselves so the society as a whole can prosper?With Scandinavia being rich in natural resources and land and with its socialist culture, it can afford expansive welfare states that come with higher taxes because it also has very small populations.

This situation is similar to Canada's but if you actually looked at the Canadian federal budget, the size of its government is not that much different fromAmerica's, the difference being that it has a much smaller national security budget and spends a lot more on public social insurance programs and on infrastructure.  Canada also has a great deal of land and is energy independent.  It also has a small population considering the vast physical size of the country.

America is different because we are rich in land and in natural resources but for whatever reason, we are still importing a hell of a lot of oil and gas when we are capable of producing all of the natural resources in the world, including oil and gas, and even though we are a country of 310 million people, we have thousands of square miles of land with very few people, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah. And we could easily produce all of the energy we need for ourselves if we just got around to doing it

My point is that a Scandinavian welfare state, considering the size of our population and the fact that we are still importing a hell of a lot of energy and have a large deficit when it comes to infrastructure, would not be the right economic model for us with those factors alone.  Since that is not the right economic model for us, it doesn't mean it can't work in other countries and has worked in other countries, but not all countries are the same and they have different needs and populations.

It's all about what government needs to do and what you need people to do for themselves and what businesses need to be productive and profitable. Once you get those factors figured out, then you get to how big the national government should be and how much it should tax to finance those operations that is consistent with strong economic and job growth, where most of the country has well-paid jobs and can pay its bills without government overtaxing it. 

Watch Mojo: ‘History of Las Vegas: Casinos and Crime’

Source:Watch Mojo- welcome to Sin City, Nevada.

Source:The New Democrat

“This city in the middle of the desert was originally named Las Vegas by Spanish explorers, and that name translates to “the meadows.” Soon, a Mormon population relocated there from Utah and eventually became important members of the community. Once a connection to nearby Los Angeles was established, it was only a matter of time before Vegas grew. However, first, the city needed an attraction. Casinos and theaters began popping up and soon Vegas was known for unlawful and sinful behavior. That encouraged organized crime to get into the action. Today, Las Vegas is known as a city of quick marriages, gambling, and glitz. In this video, WatchMojo.com learns more about the history of Las Vegas.” 

From Watch Mojo 

“History of Las Vegas: Casinos and Crime” 

Source:Watch Mojo- from a History Channel documentary.

From Watch Mojo 

"By Ned Day, Robert Stoldal, KLAS-TV, 1987. History of mob involvement in gambling in Las Vegas, 1931-1980s. Includes segments on Moe Dalitz, Allan Dorfman and the Teamsters Union, Tony "Big Tuna" Acordy and the Atlantic City mob, Frank Rosenthal, Tony Spilotro, and the Chicago mob." 

Source:Vintage Las Vegas- The Stardust Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

From Vintage Las Vegas 

“Some people call “The Mob” the founding fathers of Las Vegas. They were gangsters, hoodlums and thieves that migrated to Las Vegas from all over the country. Before Las Vegas became big business run by corporations the mob ran this town. From the early 1950′s through the 1980′s you could find the mob running the best casinos on the Vegas strip.

Even though the mob helped make Las Vegas the tourist destination it is today it wasn’t without it’s flaws. The mob was always known for being a major part of prostitution, drug dealing and loan sharking. Mobsters were often ruthless businessman who withheld tax money that should have gone to the Government to build schools, hospitals and roads. However, there were a small portion of the mob that changed themselves for the better to become model citizens and respectable businessmen."  

Source:Travel Vegas- to be completely candid: Las Vegas isn't nearly as important, without the Italian and Jewish mobs.

From Travel Vegas 

Take Jimmy Hoffa and Bugsy Siegel, and Howard Hughes as well, away from Las Vegas and that city might still be a desert town, a country town, perhaps a place where people go to get some peace and quiet, but not the the entertainment capital of the United States that it is today. This city was literally built with blood money from the Italian and Jewish mobs, but also from crooks in organized crime such as Jimmy Hoffa, Sr.

Good business people, whether legitimate characters or crooks, are always looking for the next profit and investment where they can make that next fortune. There was no one in Vegas 80 years ago, a city of perhaps 10,000 people, similar to Bethesda, Maryland (if you are familiar with my area) which was, pre-1970 at least, just a stop on the way to somewhere like Washington or Baltimore, but that started to change in the late 1930s and early 1940s as the mobs discovered Vegas.

That is what you see in this video about the men who built Las Vegas and gave the Southwest and the broader West and even the United States (once the word was out that Vegas was a great place) the opportunity to either lose or make money, but Vegas was also a great place to have a good time just a 4-hour drive from Los Angeles.  It gave the State of Nevada a serious revenue source to build its infrastructure, schools, and everything that States need to do well.  

Bill Kurtis: Vegas and the Mob: The Early Days

Source:The New Democrat

Las Vegas was perfect for the Italian and Jewish-American mobs because it was a physically large but barely populated city, with great potential to become the entertainment capital of the United States, which was not the case for Cuba, Florida, etc.  The State of Nevada itself was a huge area with a small population that these mobsters could easily control by offering them jobs in their dubious businesses.

Benjamin Bugsy Siegel (the great Jewish mobster) and Howard Hughes saw what Vegas could be before anyone else, which would be a haven for money and for business that they could develop by bringing in people from all over the country, especially the West, and from outside the United States.  They could run legitimate profitable businesses but also cover up criminal activities.

The Italian and Jewish mobs, along with Howard Hughes and a few others, made Las Vegas what it is today, the entertainment capital of the United States, where millions of Americans and foreign tourists go every year to spend their hard-earned money, lose some money, and make some money, but also have a great time and escape their everyday tedium, which is the city you see today.

The Federalist: Donald J. Boudreaux: In Defense of Liberal Learning

Source:The New Democrat

Liberalism is at its best regardless of its source and education is a perfect example. It's about giving people the tools they need to be successful in their own lives.  Education is a liberal concept because it is about empowering people and liberating them so they have what they need to live in freedom. That is exactly what a liberal education is, not teaching people what to think, but teaching them how to think and to be able to distinguish fact from opinion.

Forget about the welfare state and government dependency and other forms of big government that tend to be perceived as liberalism because that is not what liberalism is about. Without liberalism none of us would have the ability to achieve success in life because none of us would ever have the tools needed to be liberated and free from the welfare state and government dependence.  Liberalism is about liberating people and that starts with education, a liberal education at that.

Liberalism built America and a lot of what we've achieved has come from liberal values that derive from education, leading to liberation of the individual and liberal values like equal opportunity and justice for all so that every American can have that freedom and benefit from liberal democracy. These are the real liberal values and what made America great. It all begins with education so we can develop the tools and then take advantage of them. 

Revolutionary Workers Party: Malcolm X vs. James Baldwin

Source:The New Democrat

I have a problem with Malcolm X having a problem with the civil rights sit-ins of, I believe, from 1963, and perhaps earlier than that. Because what these young Americans were doing was saying that they were people too and that they could not be denied service simply because of their race or color. And all they were doing by going to these restaurants and diners and what Rosa Parks did on the bus by refusing to give up her seat to a Caucasian man was saying “we are here too and you can’t force us to leave.” Perhaps what Malcolm X would’ve preferred was that the demonstrators had bats or guns or something. And when a racist would tell them to move or try to physically move then that they would get hit the demonstrator

The American Conservative: James Antle- 'Five Ways Reagan Nostalgia Misleads Right-Wingers'

Source: The American Conservative- President Ronald Reagan. Don't know about the date and where the photo was taken.

Source:The New Democrat 

"This week marks Ronald Reagan’s 103rd birthday. Non-conservatives often mock the right’s nostalgia for the fortieth president, but the enthusiasm is as well placed as the FDR portraits that hung above many a New Deal Democrat’s mantle." 

From The American Conservative 

"This is really American big "C" Conservativism in a nutshell... they just know better than you, facts and logic be damned!  Oh yeah, you think you might have an insight about what your father thought?  Wrong you are Mr., because I read a book written by a guy who read another book about another guy, so that makes me an expert!  Okay, so I had someone tell me about both books and both guys, but I trust and believe them and therefore don't need to think critically for myself." 

From Craig Ipedia

I saw a book event last week on C-SPAN that featured Ron Reagan the son of Ronald Reagan. Now I know that politically the two Ron’s in the Reagan Family are different politically. But it is clear that Ron Jr. respects and loves his father dearly and his father loved and respected him dearly. As well and the more Ron Jr. talks about his father, the more you could see that he respected his father’s politics as well. And considers his father to be a successful president. They just didn’t agree on all the issues like as they related to the environment, aids research, and homelessness.

I bring this up because Ron Reagan wrote a book about his father’s life a few years ago. 2010 or 2011 and wrote about his father’s life a biography about his father and that is what this book event was about. And it was held about the time of President Reagan’s 100th Birthday late January, 2011. And after he was done speaking he was asked by one of the people at the book event at Politics and Prose, a Washington bookstore not very far from where I live in Maryland: “What do you think your father would feel about today’s Republicans talking about your father and comparing themselves to him?”

I’m paraphrasing here, but Ron Reagan said something to the effect that today’s right-wingers liked the political success of his father and the fact that he was a Conservative Republican or called that. But they wouldn’t of liked his politics that the party is much further to the Right today than it was when President Reagan left office back in 1989, some twenty-five years ago. 

You gotta know that Ron Reagan Sr. considered himself a Libertarian up until 1975 or so when he was first considering a strong run for President of the United States. Well, the word Libertarian and libertarianism is considered as bad as Communist or Communism by today’s Religious-Right and the broader Far-Right in the GOP.

Just read a column in the so-called American Conservative, even though it doesn’t sound that conservative to me at least in the Barry Goldwater/Ronald Reagan tradition. That said that and I’m paraphrasing here and the link of that column is on this blog, that said even though President Reagan did a lot for the conservative movement, he didn’t do much for advancing what is called social conservatism. Well, again Ron Reagan was a Classical Conservative, again think of Barry Goldwater. Not a Religious Conservative or a Neo-Conservative, which is very different.

Not arguing that Ron Reagan Sr. was a pure Libertarian because he wasn’t. The way he built up the military that by the way started under President Ford and President Carter, is a perfect example of that. But he did believe that people should have the freedom to live their own lives. And was more interested in how people interacted with each other, than what they did in their privacy. He ran on decreasing the role of government in Americans lives, not expanding it. Which makes him very different from the Religious-Right who believe Americans have too much personal freedom.

The Federalist: Fred Cole- 'Can We Fight About This Later?: The Case For Libertarians Working Together'

Source:The Federalist- U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) and I'm guessing his wife.

Source:The New Democrat 

"Richard Epstein recently wrote in his Defining Ideas column about where he parts company with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and what he terms as “hard-line libertarians.”

Richard drew a fair distinction between himself — a classical liberal who uses the term “libertarian” as shorthand — and the whole taxation-as-theft branch of libertarianism, of which I’ll happily count myself as a member. From Epstein’s “My Rand Paul Problem“:

Libertarians fall into two distinct groups: strict libertarians like Rand Paul and classical liberals such as myself. “Classical liberal” is not a term that rolls off of the tongue. Consequently, “libertarian” is the choice term in popular discourse when discussing policies that favor limited government. Libertarians of all stripes oppose President Obama’s endless attacks on market institutions and the rich. The umbrella term comfortably embraces both strands of libertarian theory vis-à-vis a common intellectual foe.

The renewed attention to Paul exposes the critical tension between hard-line libertarians and classical liberals. The latter are comfortable with a larger government than hard-core libertarians because they take into account three issues that libertarians like Paul tend to downplay: (1) coordination problems; (2) uncertainty; (3) and matters of institutional design." 

From The Federalist 

"Are you a conservative?  If so, Dr. Stephen Davies suggests that it may be worth considering the ideas of libertarianism. For instance, conservatives tend to prefer institutions that have been tried and trusted, and want to maintain and uphold a traditionally established way of life. They also typically believe in an established or correct moral code. However, it does not logically follow that government should enforce all of these things. In fact, government enforcement of morals and traditions is often detrimental to both." 

Source:Learn Liberty- Dr. Stephen Davies.

From Learn Liberty

This is the debate that the Republican Party should be having right now between Libertarians (the Ron Paul’s of the world) and the Conservative libertarian branch the old Barry Goldwater/Ronald Reagan wing of the party that seems to be led by Senator Rand Paul. And I would add Senator Mike Lee, Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Jeff Flake to that list as well. Because these are the real Conservatives in the Republican Party. Not the Far-Right faction of the Tea Party. But the Conservative Libertarians in the party.

The Republican Party will not be a governing party again at the national level which means controlling the White House unless they bring in new voters. And as big government is more unpopular both from an economic and personal point of view, Republicans need to drop big government and their Far-Right and get back to their conservative roots, if they expect to be able to compete with Democrats for the new voters that they need: Latinos, Asians, Jews, economically conservative African-Americans.

Right now the competing factions in the Republican Party that could actually move it forward and beyond their Bible Belt Christian-Nationalist base, it’s the Ron Paul classical libertarian branch. The Rand Paul conservative libertarian branch and the establishment the leadership in the Republican Party. That is supposed to look out for the best interest of the GOP that tends to be economically and foreign policy oriented. And not so much interested in the social issues.

The conservative libertarian branches of the GOP is how they move forward and become a governing party again. That would even win back the U.S. Senate as well. Because they could tell Americans especially younger Americans that they have an economic message that young people could like. And they’re not trying to run their personal lives for them. Because the Religious-Right and Far-Right in general no longer runs the Republican Party.