Steve Forbes in the Washington Times today has a very nice tribute to CEI on its 25th Anniversary. Forbes points out some of CEI’s significant achievements in pursuit of freedom and against expanding government and the real need for CEI and other free market groups to continue their strong defense of these principles.
Here’s his conclusion:
Groups like CEI are a crucial voice for entrepreneurs and all people who want to pursue their own destiny in life. That must seem like a lonely struggle at times, when businesses actively seek favors from Washington and the people place false hopes in Big Government.
Yet CEI remains hard at work, laying the groundwork for a free society. When faced with the choice between freedom and statism, I hope we will find CEI’s call to freedom loud and enduring.
I revoke my previous apology to the Swiss, and reiterate my previous disapproval. As evidenced by the latest outcome in the U.S. tax case involving UBS, we have moved beyond troubling and into something much worse.
...the world’s largest wealth manager in terms of assets, agreed to pay a $780 million fine and disclose information about some of its clients to settle a landmark U.S. tax case.
As I said in my older post: “In direct contradiction to their own legal view of tax evasion. Even though some may argue that this is moot because the U.S. does not consider a financial transaction as something beholden to privacy rights, the Swiss do–and besides, the U.S. view is wrong. A person’s financial records should be considered as sacred as their medical records.”
And with an eye toward history, let us not forget:
One issue of the time that reinforced the passage of this law [Swiss Banking Secrecy Act] came during the era of Hitler when a German law stated that any German with foreign capital was to be punished by death. Swiss banks were watched closely by the German Gestapo. It was after Germans began being put to death for holding Swiss accounts that the Swiss government was even more convinced of the need for bank secrecy.
Reading the comments on left-leaning blogs, you hear cheers and a tinge of jealousy about the whole thing. No matter if UBS did or did not help people avoid U.S. taxes, I cannot read this without envisioning a slippery slope argument. If the current climate continues, it won’t be too far-fetched to imagine laws like that of WWII Germany criminalizing and imprisoning people for choosing where to put their own money. And I won’t even mention the new Treasury Secretary. Oops
President Obama more than once last week called it “inexcusable” for Congress to get “bogged down in distraction, delay or politics as usual” over the anti-stimulus legislation. Actually, there never was such a bog-down, since the bill already passed the House by the Democratic majority, and he never needed much Republican support to make a package of substantial magnitude happen in the Senate. Obama is seeking a sheen of bipartisanship, but if he’s convinced it’s right and he occupies the moral high-ground, it’s not entirely clear why he would talk about an imaginary bog-down of what’s become a “faith-based initiative” that no one can or will stop. Obama’s right–he did win in November, as he taunted detractors last week, and nobody can stop him. It’s just curious that he feels the need to seek rivals’ approval of a highly destructive measure like this when it’s a train that can’t (or won’t) be stopped anyway.
I remember a comedy called “Moon Over Parador;” you could vote for the dictator…but only the red-tinted picture of him or the blue-tinted one. That’s how I felt watching the “debate” this past week over the size of the package: The House passed a package of $819 billion; the Senate, after hyped-up wrangling, appears set to vote on one of $780 billion late Monday afternoon. Rounding them, they’re still both $800 billion.
The bottom line is we’re getting a trillion-dollar stimulus once interest is taken into account, and the past week’s battle has been about shaving off some cost, but not the underlying premise or the fundamental merit of political stimulus.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said, “We are passing a bold and responsible plan that will help our economy get back on its feet, put people to work and put more money in their pockets.”
This kind of statement embodies the essence of the policy crisis our country faces. It’s hardly “bold and responsible” to redistribute other people’s wealth: it’s the easiest thing in the world to do when you’re a career politician; it’s dismally less “bold” when that wealth hasn’t even been created yet and must be borrowed from our descendants who have no recourse against you now. So the package is actually reckless and irresponsible beyond Thunderdome. Like much government spending, whether routine or that squandered during past recessions, it’s politically motivated and unconnected to economic recovery.
And for Reid’s comment to “put more money in…pockets”; Apart from what he’s taking from our descendents, that’s where the money is now. To implement the anti-stimulus, he has to take it out of pockets of some to give it to others. Behold, leadership during a crisis. The many alternative “liberate to stimulate” ideas we and others have been proposing for months are ignored by the political class (only as they can get away with it!), because they don’t increase the power of politicians. Alas, politicians are now salivating at the prospect of the greatest one-time lurch in the size of the State they’ve ever known. This is a stimulus for politicians and the State, not the economy.
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