Grand Old Plunderers

By Llewellyn Rockwell Jr.

What will the despicable GOP brag about at this midterm election? Well,
there’s their cheerleading for the largest federal budget in the history
of the country, squandering fully $1.7 trillion of private wealth to
feed the Leviathan state. There’s the failure of Congress to provide tax
relief to a people more highly oppressed than ever before. There’s the
budgetary cave-in to a newly emboldened left-wing of the Clinton
administration.

The House Republicans just voted for impeachment hearings, and clearly
GOP leaders despise Clinton personally. But the budget negotiations
prove that Congress and the White House do not differ on any matter of
principle. They agree on a huge role for government in education, tax
funds for the IMF, farm welfare, the glories of foreign aid, and the
need for ever-more medical largesse, and that’s just the beginning.

The Nixon impeachment hearings were only superficially about a break-in
and cover-up. Everyone knew that the Democrats wanted Nixon out because
he represented a political vision they detested (that Nixon did not live
up to it is a different issue). But today’s Republicans aren’t honest
enough to have an ulterior motive.

Oh yes, there is this one difference between the parties. The GOP wants
military contractors to get more of the loot. In the budget, the
Republicans lobbied for the largest peacetime increase in military pork
in years. It includes an aircraft carrier contract for Trent Lott’s
political supporters and a cargo plane contract for Newt Gingrich’s.

Don’t let any Republican candidate get away with saying he favors
community control of education. The budget further centralizes control
over public schools with billions for Clinton’s hyped hiring of 100,000,
a sop to the National Education Association.

The bill also includes more dough for farmers. You see, prices of
commodities and thus gross profits for farmers have recently been
falling, which is a boon for consumers. But what the market economy
grants as a gift for productivity (lower prices), the government takes
away in taxes for its agri-pals.

And rather than bringing the troops home after recent terrorist
incidents in places where U.S. troops have no business, Congress voted
to increase funding for the burgeoning empire. No regular American
supports U.S. troops putzing around Bosnia, but this glorious mission
gets a big financial boost as well.

It’s enough to drive a regular Joe to desperate measures. Faced with a
government totally out of control, a Congress utterly unresponsive, a
leadership that is shockingly two-faced, a White House that longs for
the total state, a global military empire on the loose, and still no tax
cuts after years and years of promises, some enraged Americans might
seek to march into Washington, D.C., to tell these politicians a thing
or two.

In response to such a possibility, Congress voted to spend $200 million
to develop a “visitor center” to block public access to the Capitol.
Faced with massive and growing public anger, the first priority of the
government is protecting itself against the people.

Whatever the second priority is, it’s not tax cuts. Newt Gingrich seems
to think that statehood for Puerto Rico and crazed millennial ramblings
about our high-tech future are a substitute for tax cuts. And Dick Armey
is so drunk with power he thinks he can defend this budgetary fiasco in
front of grass-roots Republican audiences.

The talk lately has been that the Republicans will not pick up many
seats in Congress. Actually, it could and should be worse. Given their
record since 1994, they deserve to lose. It’s time to toss out the
proven liars and give the likely liars a chance.

What to use as an acid test? The IMF is a good place to start. Despite
the claim that the $18 billion bailout was necessary to save the world
economy, this money is not only an insult to American taxpayers, it is
also an economic disaster, sending more signals that the U.S. is
prepared to prop up every financially reckless government in the world,
so long as U.S. banks own some of its debt.

It’s fair to ask Republicans to remind the public why, precisely, we are
supposed to prefer them to Democrats. Have they repealed any crippling
regulations against American business? Have they stopped the antitrust
reign of terror against America’s best companies? Have they blocked
Clinton’s foreign warmongering? Have they cut taxes?

Since the Revolution of 1994, the Republicans have distinguished
themselves for pettiness, duplicity, dissembling, and legal graft. And
they add insult to injury by doing it in the name of conservatism.
Republican voters are furious about this most recent display. It takes a
very stupid party to do that to its supporters just before election day.

Llewellyn Rockwell Jr.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. He also edits a daily news site, LewRockwell.com. Read more of Llewellyn Rockwell Jr.'s articles here.