Yesterday the Club For Growth issued a press release expressing hope that Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson will continue to campaign on his willingness to tolerate pro-growth fiscal policies.
John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton have all demonstrated a deep antipathy towards the free market and a gleeful eagerness to raise taxes through the roof the first chance they get. In the MSNBC Democratic debate, only Governor Richardson chided the tax-and-spend triumvirate, saying, “Well, as Democrats, I just hope that we always don't think of new taxes to pay for programs.”
I think I can help.
Obviously, one good way to reduce the need for program funding is to limit the number of entitlement programs we invent in the first place. Of course, I really couldn't care less how many programs our politicians implemented if I weren't expected and ultimately forced to pay for the ones I don't want and won't benefit from.
Here's my plan: Let congressional and presidential candidates campaign for all the social and corporate welfare programs they like. But instead of allowing the federal government to immorally confiscate and hoard our income in order to pay for a seemingly limitless number of prospective entitlements, we should expect these candidates to bankroll their own programs.
How would this work? Easy. If a candidate really cares so much about his constituents that he's willing to spend other people's money on discriminatory assistance programs, he should be willing to spend his own money on them too. Why, if he possesses the means, he can always dig into his own bank account to foot the bills once elected. But I'm going to go ahead and assume that most politicians, despite their overwhelming altruistic tendencies and allegiance to the less fortunate, would choose against this.
No matter. Politicians have lots of friends, not least those loyal lap dogs called voters who love to send campaign contributions their way in exchange for any number of favors. And if political supporters care enough to see their pet programs implemented, they should take little issue with the idea that they should be the ones paying for them.
In short, let candidates accumulate a war chest of campaign contributions with no limit. These funds can obviously be used both in the run-up to an election and afterward, when politicians face the prospect of paying for all those programs they promised in order to gain election from the outset. Of course, we might need to abolish those draconian campaign finance laws in order to implement my plan, but I've never thought free political speech was too much of a burden anyway.
You say you love freedom? Then expect the people who vote for entitlement programs to provide the funding for them. The politicians who appeal to the most voters will win and, more importantly, likewise will only be able to make good on the programs they've been sent to office to enact. With a finite pool of resources, they will be forced to not only implement the most valuable programs, but also economize as if they were running a private business. After all, if they exhaust funding as a result of their own incompetence or careless decisions, they'll either have to abandon their programs or appeal to their supporters for additional sponsorship. One would imagine that either scenario would incentivize our politicians to maximize the efficiency of their time and resources.
Now, as you sit there rolling your eyes and cynically murmering to yourself that such a plan is highly unrealistic, ask yourself why. Ask yourself if it's because it's much easier use the tyrannical power of government to compel citizens to pay taxes that are rarely used for their own benefit. Or if it's because it's easier to be charitable with other people's money. Or if, perish the thought, it's because politicians would never adopt a plan that would result in the elimination of so many wasteful, unnecessary entitlement programs and, quite likely, their own cushy jobs in the process.