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”.
