Issue Position: Strengthening the Economy

Issue Position

Many think of the economy as an orchestra being conducted by Washington DC, kept in perfect tempo and right on pitch by a brilliant maestro wise enough to guide us through his song--this thinking is a mistake. A free economy is millions of people individually making their own music, the only cunning thing the maestros do is trick us into dancing to their tune (and keep them employed).

Our economy is the sum of all economic transactions in the United States. From the everyday transactions of trading our time for paychecks (jobs), through the rare and precious transactions of exchanging one form of wealth for another (like buying a house); from the largest capital investments (ordering airplanes), to the smallest of transactions (ordering pizza). Each one of these little transactions makes its own sound … cha-ching!

As we work, as we live, as we play, each little exchange creates wealth in our economy and pushes it forward.

Would you expect to work for free? Would you expect anyone else? We have house payments to make, kids to feed, retirement ahead of us, school loans behind us, new amenities to buy, and the occasional visit from Mr.Murphy to be prepared against; we are individually motivated to make our own decisions on how we can get the most wealth for ourselves and thus contribute the most momentum to our economy.

The best economy is where individuals can make their own way without interference. Government does play an important role in a free economy--it keeps it free from force and fraud.

Keeping the US economy strong
A short list of things we can do to get our economy strong and keep it that way:

* Stop trying to create jobs out of thin air. If employment were the fuel of a strong economy we could quickly build a powerful economy on digging holes and then filling them up requiring only a capital investment in shovels. Jobs are an exchange inside a healthy economy and not their product. Spending money in this fashion is transferring a lot of taxpayer dollars (potential individual decisions) to projects that usually divide those dollars among fewer individuals and corporate interests with political ties.
* End individual welfare. The largest chunks of our federal budget are programs that unjustly transfer wealth without consent. The justification for these programs is to assist those who are "in need", this is a noble goal but is certainly not the proper role of our government. A more productive role would be to keep making these needs affordable in the first place by maintaining open markets and allowing individuals to keep their wealth so they do not need assistance.
* End corporate welfare. The relationships between corporate lobbyists with fists full of campaign dollars and politicians acting on their behalf is infuriating … infuriating that we tolerate it so easily. The cure for this relationship, which replaces a competition for our individual choices with the choices of a handful of men accepting contributions, is very simple--stop voting for politicians who take corporate donations.
* Restore the Constitutional dollar and End the Federal Reserve. "No State shall … make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payments of Debts …" Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution. Our nation's founders understood that promises don't pay the rent or put food on the table, they did not include sound money into the Constitution casually but to protect us from the reckless allure of fiat currency.

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