Welcome to the American Freedom and Enterprise Foundation, an organization devoted to reestablishing the consensus for relying on free markets to produce jobs and wealth. And when we say “consensus”, we mean exactly that. Traditionally, Americans across Party lines – whatever their differences about the exact role of government – have understood that government should not “kill the goose that lays the golden egg” – that it must allow our people the resources and freedom to generate the economic growth on which all of us depend. That consensus is now under attack in Washington.
Consider the following:
1) The government has leveraged the future earnings of the people at an unprecedented rate. According to the Congressional Budget office, during the first six months of the new administration, the government passed four measures – the bank bailouts (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the economic stimulus package, and the FY09 and FY10 budgets – that increased the debt by $4 trillion and committed the government to at least $3.5 trillion in additional borrowing over the next ten years. Each American family will pay an average $160,000 more in taxes[1] during their lifetime just to pay for this new, additional debt.
We know this money was spent in the name of stimulating the economy. But in the past there was a general agreement that “Keynesian” type stimulus policies, whatever their merit, should be temporary and should not add substantially to the debt over the long term.
2) The health care measures under consideration in Washington are another example. According to their own estimates, the House passed a bill from Committee that would move at least 47 million Americans from private health care to a government plan. The Senate is considering legislation which could have a similar effect, and will at minimum intrude the government heavily into the care and well being of millions of Americans.
Since the mid-1960s Washington has tried aggressively to provide health care to those with special needs (the elderly, the poor, veterans) while allowing substantial freedom for others to get their own health insurance in the private sector. Why not seek an incremental solution now that preserves that balance – helping the uninsured while leaving others alone who are satisfied with their coverage?
3) The House of Representatives has passed a climate change bill that will increase energy costs to the average American family by $1,600 per year.[2] These added energy costs will no doubt push jobs and economic growth offshore to countries that have no concern for stopping global warming.
As far back as 1997, anticipating precisely this danger, the Senate voted unanimously 95-0[3] not to support global warming measures that burdened the American economy unless other countries did the same thing. Why not respect that common sense consensus now, and deal with greenhouse gas through technology? Or does anyone actually believe that the Chinese, who are building new coal plants at the rate of one per week, will restrict their own economic growth just because we restrict ours?
We intend not just so spotlight problems, but also to suggest solutions – and in most cases the answers we propose will have their roots in the philosophy of both Parties. See for example, our discussion of Association Health Plans as the best way to help the uninsured.
America has faced and overcome difficult times before; we did it by relying on the genius and respecting the freedom of our people. We can do it that way again. We encourage you to visit our website, at freedomsolutions.org
[1] Calculated by Michael J. Boskin, using CBO estimates and published in the Wall Street Journal on April 3, 2009. The article is titled: “Obamas $163,000 Tax Bomb.” Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.
[2] June 12, 2009 CBO cost estimate addressed to Sen. John Kerry.
[3] On 25 July 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing nations as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States”.
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Is it true that Obama plans to sign a treaty with the U.N. in Dec.09? Will it put the U.S. under the rule of the U.N. making our constitution void?
Jim,
It is so good to see you back and involved in the political system again. I was afraid we had lost you to some think tank or a stuffy law firm. We need your voice in front of the people, we need you common sense approach to solving problems, we need your strength and leadership to put this trainwreck back on the rails.
WE NEED YOUR TALENT IN WASHINGTON,
You have been missed.
The free enterprise system that made us great is no longer under assault. It is capitulating. As Wall Street, Auto manufacturing, Banks, insurance and the medical industry look to politicans and lobbyist for solutions instead of the American people, they abandon the very fundamentals of our once robust economy. An economy the world once envied. Washington offers solutions with scoldings and bales of monopoly money. And these former champions of industry fold, abandon the competitive free market system, and settle for the handout.
But it is not too late. America: Americans, are waking up. Whether accross the back fence, the barbershop on a blog site, the individual Americans are talking. And they are finding others who are speaking the same politicaly incorrect language. And finding agreement. That which made us great needs to return. A system where the state was subordinate to the individual.
The pursuit of happiness comes from a competitive society that rewards success and allows one to keep the fruit of their labor. In the end, that is fair. In the end, that engine is what made us great economicaly, technicaly, spiritualy, moraly.
You once told me, at one of your grassroots breakfast meetings, “When we send our (tax) money to Washington, we yeild our power, our personal freedom, to decide it’s purpose.” It was a pivotal moment for me. It clarified and confirmed my understanding of the founder’s original purpose.
Big government justifies it’s existence by providing for one’s every need, but at the cost of one’s personal freedom. A small government must prove it worth by providing value for what it takes from the individual. A big government has no reason to fear it’s people. A small government must fear and therefore respect it’s citizens. The Ying and the Yang of this struggle has dominated our nations direction for too many of the last 50 years.
I don’t think anyone left or right, questions in which direction we are presently going. I’m comforted that you are back in the game, and I hope you will be part of the leadership that turns our great country around.
We can do this.
Tell me how I can help
“… in most cases the answers we propose will have their roots in the philosophy of both Parties.”
Then I’m not interested in your “answers.”
Readers, do not be fooled by this red team/blue team nonsense. They are all interested in one thing: the growth of the state. If you think there is any difference between Democrats and Republicans, then you probably think professional wrestling is real.
“Conservative” Republicans love the warfare state, and pretend to hate the welfare state. “Liberal” Democrats love the welfare state, and pretend to hate the warfare state. The result is that regardless of who is in power, the welfare/warfare state grows and we become less free.
Intelligent visitors to this site should go instead to lewrockwell.com for sound reasoning about freedom and free markets. Check out also Lew’s book, “The Left, The Right & The State.”
There is not a terrorist behind every tree, and we are not any better served by George Bush’s No Child Left Behind and prescription drug coverage than we are by Obamacare. Don’t be a sucker. Reject them all.
Please answer the above question! I am so scared for our country! This has GOT to be stopped! I feel so helpless-my family and I are currently living outside the US as missionaries and how we wish we were back home to get involved in the fight against these policies that will summarily dismantle our freedom and the country we love. What can I do as an American citizen living outside the US?
BTW, love, love, love the logo!
sounds like we are repeating history from 8 decades ago of another once great contry?
Jim,
As someone who worked on your last Senate campaign, I’m a 100% Talent supporter, but this this thinktank approach you’re launching baffles me. The liberals who are tirelessly tearing apart our country are doing so because they hold Power. Politics IS about ideas, but it functions through POWER. So unless you’re in the saddle to take BACK that power, I’m not that interested in your ideas.
The Republican party is trapped in a sucking vacuum of leadership, which you have provided in the past. Most elected liberals out there are hanging curve balls just waiting to be smacked out of the park, but that’s not going to get accomplished by a thinktank, it’s going to get accomplished by RUNNING!
Keep me posted,
Ryan
People had always had to fight for freedom. When people become complacent, freedoms slowly slip away. I am so glad more people are waking up and standing up, but it may be too little, too late. I am surrounded by people who are just willing to “go with the flow,” don’t know who they have for congressmen and don’t “have time to vote.” They are first to complain about the state of the country, but don’t want to be bothered to get involved. One lady even told me that I was wasting my time trying to change things, since I was only one person. I replied that she needed to tell that to the Rosa Parks, Martin Luther Kings and Mother Teresa’s of the world. An army is made up of many single people, and we like-minded individuals need to unite into an army to protect our cherished freedoms. You go, Mr. Talent!
Mr. Talent:
as a new ired american and citizen, of what I believe to be a free country, I support your efforts and reasoning in trying to promote and encourage citizens to take a stand and, right or wrong voice an opinion. I have to say that a big problem I have been having is finding the information to make an informed decision on anything Government has to say. You can listen to talk radio and get one opinion, not neccesarily on the issues, and listen to the media and get pretty much the same opinion on and oposite talking point, but not any concrete info as to how the issue is going to be administered when passed. Case in point is “Health Care Reform”. All this talk on both sides of the issue, with little to no concrete information. Some say if Government has to do with it, it wont get done right. Some say if left to health care professionals it will be a rip off. Is there not some informed non partisan entity that has just the facts so an ordinary person can make a decision not bases on BS from either side. If there is how about putting that an any other good infor in your newsletter.
Thanks.
I always thought the old saying was “power to the people” not power to the government. Let’s ask our officials to cut their own salaries to show they care & can sympathize with the “common” people. It’s easy for them to spend our money when they think of it as their own. It’s ours & let’s let them know it. Remember that other old saying? It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Stand up & squeak, squeak,squeak
Luana, you are correct that freedom can’t be obtained or kept without struggle, but IMHO you are putting your hope in the wrong place.
Voting in elections for federal office is a waste of time. Actually, it’s worse than a waste of time. No matter whom you voted for in the last presidential election, your vote will be used as evidence that President Obama has a mandate to rule over us. He might say something like, “X million Americans voted last year and I won. The American people have spoken. They want change; therefore, I am announcing today the federal takeover of all grocery stores. Food is too important to be left to the whims of greedy capitalists.”
Guess what: Your vote will be included in that “X million,” so you’ve helped Obama take away more of our freedom.
Yes, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King did “change things.” But they didn’t do it by voting. They did it by resisting the state, and by changing the hearts and minds of people.
Imagine a one-percent voter turnout in the next presidential election. Politicians would be cowering in the corners of their offices, wondering what the people were up to. What a great day that would be. Who knows, maybe they would even start obeying the Tenth Amendment.
“If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.” That is simple-minded civics class baloney. The fact is that if you do vote, you have no right to complain, because you are lending legitimacy to this lame one-party system and helping the unconstitutional American state grow.
Be patriotic. Don’t vote!
what happened to the healthcare thread? did the brown coats make you delete it?
as this one soon will be.
I thought this was just hipe.
Sen. Talent:
As a community leader I want to offer my support and encouragement to your new endeavor. Those of us who are leaders at the local level have recently looked for leadership “up the line.” Unfortunately, we are having trouble finding it in some way, shape or form. Leadership requires courage, common sense AND common purpose. Hopefully this new organization will be able to support the positive change our citizens are craving.
Please consider the inclusion of leaders at the local level. We are DIRECTLY experiencing the affects of the down economy in our communities. We see the shuttered businesses and the lines at our local food pantries. The “Good Ol Boys” in D.C. have little, if any, realistic view of how public policy influences what happens at the local government level. We see, hear and personally experience it in our everyday encounters with citizens from our respective communities.
Best Of Luck!
I agree about both parties using us and not being all that different. Unless we go in numbers to our representatives offices (where they are present) or to the steps of the capitol (when they are in session) and demand that they come out and be accountable to our demands, we are wasting our time.
Both political parties have used us to join sides (R or D), spend money supporting them, and then fight each other while they sit in congress and line their pockets. We need to make it clear that we are demanding, as CONSERVATIVE AMERICANS NOT opposing parties, that our politicians reverse their actions and return to our constitution. REMOVE ALL CZARS AND THEIR SALARIES.
Jim, I’m pleased to see this new forum with you as chaiman. You have always worked quietly, sensibly and effectively to bring out the best for America, from legislators on both sides of the aisle.
Simply want to say your article is impressive. The lucidity in your post is simply impressive and i can assume you are an expert on this field. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with future post. Thanks a million and please keep up the effective work.
If you have a moment Id like you to take a look at the new credit laws put into place in 2010 that will be affecting this article. Might consider revision.
Great information! Thanks!
The “stimulus plan”, the saviors tool to rescue the economy and so urgent it had to be voted on within hours after emerging from behind closed doors, was always meant for special interests and to buy votes at the November elections.