Lobby Scandals are symptomatic of Big Government

[All_Around_Brown]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul297.html


Well said Ron Paul....now have some bricks

[PatsFanInEaglesLand]

I totally agree............ Now I must go take a shower I feel dirty that I agreed with something else on lewrockwell.

[All_Around_Brown]

Originally Posted by PatsFanInEaglesLand

I totally agree............ Now I must go take a shower I feel dirty that I agreed with something else on lewrockwell.

Don't you feel stupid for repeatedly bashing it as a left wing whacko site, or are you purple like the rest of mainstream American?

[Harry Boy]

I agree also, I would rather leave a member of the Mafia to watch my family than a US Senator.

Have you ever looked real closely at Arlen Specters face, I wouldn't trust him to empty my garbage, he looks like one of those kids you would bring home and they would steal your mothers frying pan.

Hey, you want some bricks

[wistahpatsfan]

I friggin hate Libertarians. They make so much sense that I became one, and then I spew something from the philosophy at a party and everybody looks at me like I'm from another planet. The idea of killing the IRS and firing 99% of accountants has never occurred to anyone because they both exist as a normal part of life, like snow in the winter and the Pats kicking arse...It's so embarrassing sometimes.

[Patters]

How can you agree with that tripe?

Obviously, in an enterprise as big as the government, there will be corruption, but will it be greater as a percent than anywhere else? There's no reason to believe that. Are Americans in government more dishonest than those in the private sector? Of course not. Is it easier to steal from government than business? Yes and no. Yes, because it's big. No, because it's more open than any business. Does government charge more and spend more than big business? I don't think so. Oil companies have shown that even in a free market collusion is possible. Does money corrupt government? No more than it corrupts business.

The key to good government is openness. The more access we as citizens have to what the government is doing with our tax dollars, the greater the likelihood that we can prevent abuse. But, to take money out of government simply strengthens the hand of business without a counterbalancing force in place.

[Harry Boy]

Originally Posted by Patters

How can you agree with that tripe?

Obviously, in an enterprise as big as the government, there will be corruption, but will it be greater as a percent than anywhere else? There's no reason to believe that. Are Americans in government more dishonest than those in the private sector? Of course not. Is it easier to steal from government than business? Yes and no. Yes, because it's big. No, because it's more open than any business. Does government charge more and spend more than big business? I don't think so. Oil companies have shown that even in a free market collusion is possible. Does money corrupt government? No more than it corrupts business.

The key to good government is openness. The more access we as citizens have to what the government is doing with our tax dollars, the greater the likelihood that we can prevent abuse. But, to take money out of government simply strengthens the hand of business without a counterbalancing force in place.

Yeah, but what about health care and those flys that walk around on kids faces over in Africa?

[All_Around_Brown]

Originally Posted by Patters

How can you agree with that tripe?

Obviously, in an enterprise as big as the government, there will be corruption, but will it be greater as a percent than anywhere else? There's no reason to believe that. Are Americans in government more dishonest than those in the private sector? Of course not. Is it easier to steal from government than business? Yes and no. Yes, because it's big. No, because it's more open than any business. Does government charge more and spend more than big business? I don't think so. Oil companies have shown that even in a free market collusion is possible. Does money corrupt government? No more than it corrupts business.

The key to good government is openness. The more access we as citizens have to what the government is doing with our tax dollars, the greater the likelihood that we can prevent abuse. But, to take money out of government simply strengthens the hand of business without a counterbalancing force in place.

Patters, the bigger government gets, the harder it is to maintain "openness", and the easier it is for government (administration costs) to get away with skimming off the top. You have so many layers of government today that every program x gets y amount in revenues taken out at each level, and you end up with x-y-y-y-y; all those ys act in sustaining the big government program..

Thats why less government is the best government, its easier to oversee the waste, and to hold accountable the representation of taxation.

As far as your contention that the oil industry operates in a free market...I also respectfully disagree.

[Patters]

Originally Posted by All_Around_Brown

Patters, the bigger government gets, the harder it is to maintain "openness", and the easier it is for government (administration costs) to get away with skimming off the top. You have so many layers of government today that every program x gets y amount in revenues taken out at each level, and you end up with x-y-y-y-y; all those ys act in sustaining the big government program.

Thats why less government is the best government, its easier to oversee the waste, and to hold accountable the representation of taxation.

I agree that we must do all that is possible to make government efficient, but the same problem exists in business. If you've ever worked for large company, you know that. The difference is that government is more open. Look at the Big Dig, and the likely abuses committed by Bechtel. Don't you think there are many other abuses that we don't know about because there's no way for us as citizens to find out more?

Now as far as bureacracy being bent on sustaining itself, it's not necessarily true. I don't think the public school system is generally overloaded in terms of bureacracy. In fact, it's a fairly flat organization as a rule. Thus, it's possible to make large institutions more efficient, but again that doesn't mean that we reduce the size of government. We have enough slums, hunger, crime, racism, illiteracy, poverty, illness, etc. that government could do much much more. To shift those issues to big business would be far more costly by any measure.

We don't need to reduce government, we need to make it more efficient and shift some its resources around.

Originally Posted by All_Around_Brown

As far as your contention that the oil industry operates in a free market...I also respectfully disagree.

I suspect you're talking more about corruption here than over-regulation, or do you really favor a free market where all the power can reside in the hands of a small number of individuals and corporations?

[All_Around_Brown]

No, I'm talking about petroleum industry subsidization. If we look at the true cost of a gallon of gas, do you think its $2.25 a gallon??

If hypothetically the Iraq war is about securing a strategic supply (which it is), then the true cost is on the order of ten to a hundred times the amount you pay at the pump.

Take government out of that industry, and you have competition for a change. And market competitiveness increases, not decreases, the number of individuals who hold the power in the market. Oil executives would have to think about finding supplies by diplomatic or business means, not by riding on the backs of a superpower swashbuckler with a greedy insane man at the helm.