So spoke President Barack Obama in his inaugural address today:

“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.”

When Obama said this, he was no doubt referring to his stated goal of having government build out broadband networks on taxpayers’ dime. The massive $825-billion stimulus package unveiled in Congress last week devotes $6 billion to build out broadband to areas where high-speed online connectivity is sparsely available.

Providing private goods like broadband…

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The bailout bill that passed through Congress today seeks to solve the financial mess by massively increasing government involvement in private finance. But more Government cannot be the answer to a government-created problem. The fact is that short-sighted government policies distorted the market in the first place. Bankers were certainly to blame for responding to these signals from government in the hope of a quick buck, but at its base, much of the problem was caused by government.

These are the…

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