Growls

Today’s Washington Post reported that “GOP leaders agree to panel on federal deficit” although “analysts in both parties said the effort faces a dauntingly poisoned political atmosphere,” adding:

“Even as he unveiled an executive order creating the panel, President Obama acknowledged that he is asking its members to attempt "the impossible." For decades, budget projections have shown that rising health-care costs and an aging population would drive the nation deeply into debt. Government spending to ease the recent recession has accelerated that process.”

Blogging at Big Government today, Gary Wolfram, a political economy professor at Hillsdale College, asks whether the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, as it is formally known, is needed. He writes that the commission “is what everyone really knows it is—a bipartisan group of former and current political elites that will listen to hours of testimony by a select group of witnesses in order to create a report that will justify a tax increase for which there does not exist political support.” Wolfram goes on to say:

"Our budget crisis is a crisis of responsibility and a government that no longer is bound by enumerated powers. Friedrich Hayek wrote that a free society probably demands more than any other that people be guided in their action by a sense of responsibility. Rather than letting the system of markets and family satisfy our retirement and health care needs, we have instead created a government retirement program and two government health insurance companies that make up an annual expenditure of $1.5 trillion out of the projected $3.7 trillion 2011 budget. Adding on another $250 billion for net interest on the national debt, and we know what the problem is.

“Raising taxes to sustain government transfer programs is not going to solve our budget crisis. Indeed, this is how we got into the problem in the first place. In 1850, Bastiat wrote in The Law that a just government is based upon our natural right to self-defense. An unjust law is one which violates this natural right, by taking the property of one person to give to another. He also argued that once a government engages in what he termed “legalized plunder” several things will happen, one of which is that people will fail to recognize an unjust law when they see it. The government will become, in his words, “that great fiction by everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” We have arrived at that time.

“We do not need a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. We need to return to those principles of liberty and responsibility that have resulted in the wealth and social cooperation that we still enjoy. This will include electing representatives that will admit that it is not possible for Americans to retire at the age of 62 with a government pension or to have a government insurance company pay for their medical expenses. We must make the transition to individual retirement savings and a market-based insurance system. This will take strong leadership from our elected officials, not the formation of a commission designed to distract us from the impending difficulties caused by our attempt to use an unbounded government to make us all secure.

Now that's a Growl! 

UPDATE (2/19/10): The Wall Street Journal calls the group, created by President Obama by executive order, the VAT Commission, a suggestion that it would bring on a European-style "value added tax." The Journal suggests the president is "seeking cover for tax increases on the middle class."