About This Blog

The upcoming November 2010 elections are possibly the most critical for the United States in quite some time.  Americans face a clear and perhaps stark choice for the future course of the United States and its place in the world.  Competing ideas on the direction which the United States should take are presented regularly by political leaders and the media.  The merits and consequences of these ideas are not always clear either to the politicians who sponsor them or the voters and taxpayers they want to persuade.  At times, the political agendas behind these ideas are open to question as well.

Whatever one thinks of political leaders in the United States, we elected them, and American voters and taxpayers are responsible for making informed decisions when they vote.  This can be challenging with political campaigns where the last thing candidates want is to inform voters.  This blog attempts to help American voters with their responsibility to make informed decisions when they vote.

This blog will explore these competing ideas in the context of certain economic principles borne out by actual experience and historical data rather than various economic philosophies and ideologies.  Politics can have a major impact on economics and, therefore, on the lives of individual taxpayers and voters.  No political parties or candidates will be endorsed here.  The basic economic principles considered are:

• Freer markets generally work better.  Supply and demand usually triumph over government intervention and regulation of the economy despite the best of intentions and often in unintended ways.  This includes all price controls.

• The impact of the government on the economy is determined by government spending; the federal “deficit” is a public relations exercise for politicians.

• Individuals make better decisions and get more value spending and investing their own money than the government does by collecting and spending taxes.

• Government can redistribute and destroy wealth; it cannot create either wealth or prosperity.

• Private sector companies need to provide products and services which customers want at prices customers will pay.  Private sector companies need to be profitable and manage costs to survive and be successful.

• Governments do not have to be concerned about cost and profitability.  Products and services provided by government typically involve higher costs, lower quality, and lower customer demand and satisfaction than those provide by the private sector.

• Reducing tax rates results in more tax revenue for the government, increased growth in the economy, more jobs, and more income for individuals.

• Raising tax rates for any companies or taxpayers reduces growth in the economy, jobs, and the income of individuals.

In looking at today’s political landscape, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Author of the Declaration of Independence, 3rd President of the United States, made some interesting observations about government and politics in the early days of the United States which seem equally applicable today.  Some of his observations which will guide this blog are:

• “We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”  --Thomas Jefferson

• “Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man.”  --Thomas Jefferson

• “I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple. Were we directed from Washington when to sow, when to reap, we should soon want bread.”  --Thomas Jefferson

• “On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”  --Thomas Jefferson