Real Change, Not Two Peas in a Pod

Bored with the two main candidates? Their positions on the “issues” are nearly identical. Their “debates” aren’t on principles, but on personalities and policy quibbles. They’re two peas in the same government pod.

That’s why, if you vote for Bill Clinton or Bob Dole, you’re wasting your vote.

In the usual political racket, the power elite pretend to give us a choice. The winner then amasses power, expands government and pays off special interests. Our role is to pay up, shut up and think good thoughts about democracy.

The truth is that no matter which of the approved candidates wins, nothing will change. Neither intends to curb, much less end, the power and privileges of the leviathan state, which is the central evil of our time. Right now, the U.S. government controls more resources, territory and weapons of mass destruction than any other government in the history of the world.

This is a disgrace, but you can do something about it. You can pull the lever for Harry Browne, presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, who is on the ballot in all 50 states.

The party may be a mixed bag, but its nominee is a star. As a bestselling author and investment writer, Browne has defended individual liberty with passion, good sense and moral courage. His issues are federalism, free markets and foreign policy isolationism, the core concerns of the framers of the Constitution.

He argues that almost every problem in American life is traceable to an increasingly oppressive central government. The feds dominate our lives, whether they’re taxing us, running our schools, bailing out Mexico or bombing Iraq.

The trouble is this: Every president since the end of World War I has promised to cut the government as an election tactic. Yet year after year, the beast gets bigger and meaner. At the turn of the century, all levels of government combined to take about 8% of the national income. Today, they grab nearly 50%, with no end in sight.

What went wrong? Past promises either were fibs or intellectually inconsistent. If a Republican or Democrat wants to cut one area of the budget (say, welfare), the other wants to increase it in another area (say, the military). They compromise by increasing both. Browne is different because he would end oppression by the federal government, in George Washington’s words, “a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

In domestic policy, Browne wants huge tax cuts, huge spending cuts, the return of real states’ rights (not the phony version offered by the Clinton-Dole welfare bill), a restoration of the civil and economic liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The other candidates don’t question the idea that government should grow by 5% per year (to keep pace with inflation and the GDP). But Browne proposes a freedom budget, as detailed in his book “Why Government Doesn’t Work” (St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

The federal budget is $1.6 trillion; Browne would cut it to $100 billion. That’s still more than double the federal budget of 1950. Back then, the thousands of federal programs that regulate our lives and monitor our every move didn’t exist.

Browne would end income and inheritance taxes as dangerous interventions in the free market. He would stop domestic welfare and foreign meddling; the Housing and Urban Development Department and the Pentagon would be slashed to the bone. He would restore sound money and eliminate the power of the Federal Reserve. He would privatize Social Security, slash regulations, repeal gun controls, end the subsidies that are driving up health costs and return education and drug programs to the states.

On the environment, he would give federal lands to the states and private parties. On race relations, he would repeal all laws restricting the freedom of association. On abortion, he would end federal funding, repeal Roe vs. Wade and let the states decide--just what the Constitution requires.

Browne is no fly-by-night protest candidate. With his deep understanding of history, economics and legal theory, he makes the other guys look frivolous, not to mention dishonest.

Unlike this last Congress, Harry Browne can make freedom a reality again. Can he win? Probably not. But by voting for him, you will give good ideas a higher public profile. It’s a necessary first step in taking back our country.

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Articles making the case for other candidates will appear in coming days.