Trump and Brownback and the GOP

If socialists and statists wanted to damage limited government and republicanism they could not have chosen better men as Manchurians than Trump and Brownback.

Trump is the poster child for crony capitalism and everything against the ideals of a free and open society you could imagine. Open: as in trade, borders, tolerance, speech....

Brownback apparently never completed a serious economics course and certainly never read Adam Smith, Hayek, or Milton Friedman. You balance budgets with mildly progressive taxes that recognize the commons must be funded or the middle-class will revolt. (Smith noted all rebellions in English politics are from the monied classes, not the bottom.)

Low taxes are ideal. As low as the community will tolerate, ideally. Low and fair, rewarding hard work. But you cannot cut taxes without a plan to determine what should be funded and why.

In my ideal world, only first-responders and a handful of other priorities are funded through taxes. As little as possible, but enough that people don't revolt. You prove some things can be and should be privatized.

Basically, as even Keynes wrote, you balance the budget first in a stable economy, and then decide which path to take from there (more or less welfare). You only go into debt for emergencies. Keynes argued debts should be short-term.

The "Republicans" did this to themselves. Every step of the way. Every time they embraced ignorant talking heads and pundits with no economic, philosophical, historical, or scientific perspectives.

Read Hayek. Road to Serfdom. Curiously, the GOP is heading right into this anti-democratic, anti-republican abyss led by a Tweeting billionaire with an Ivy League degree and no actual interest in knowledge.

Hayek noted... liberalism doesn't need to be democratic. It needs to be educated and moral.

No wonder young people believe "socialism" must be better. Keep this up, GOP, and you'll elect someone to the left of Bernie next time. It won't end well.

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