Present members of Congress win votes by promising ... goodies. That leaves it up to future members of Congress to figure out how to welsh on those promises, which could not be met without jacking up tax rates to unprecedented levels.
Well, I was going to cut off the last bit after "promises", but it seems to me that it would be a bit intellectually dishonest of me to do that without discussion. Quoting Sowell to me is like playing the trumpets of heaven. I don't want to see the conductor start rapping his baton on the podium to explain some difficult bit to all the kids in the audience.
"...[J]acking up taxes to unprecedented levels." Obviously a bad thing. You know it, I know it and the American people know it, as Bob Dole would say. [Actually it was more like, "YUNOITINOITANTH'AMERICANPEOPLEKNOWIT!!!"]. Good thing he - Sowell - doesn't stop there:
Even that probably wouldn't provide enough money, since confiscatory tax rates confiscate the incentives needed to keep the economy going. An alternative political ploy would be to pay people the amount of money that was promised but in dollars so inflated that they won't buy anything close to what dollars bought when they were paid into the Social Security system.
Getting millions of people to rely on pensions that are not going to be there is corrupting government on a scale that makes bribing a few Congressmen look like minor league stuff.
By which he means, of course, 'Slap Abramoff on the wrist and just ignore those culturally corrupt Republicans behind the curtain.'
Oh! Sorry. Didn't meant to feed MoveOn etc. their lines.
Simply put, the US Govt has grown a mass of experiments that haven't panned out. They need to be excised like... Sorry, I already spent my allowance of metaphors.
Sowell: "What can be done about such corruption?"
It takes big bucks to run a political campaign and all that most politicians have to sell is the power of government that they control. That is what they do sell in various ways to various special interests.
Finally, he fires the shot to be heard round the world:
What really needs to be done is to put a limit of one term in one office and a waiting period of several years before being elected or appointed to another office in government. In other words, make political careers impossible.
Can people who are not career politicians run the government? People who were not career politicians created the government and the Constitution of the United States of America.
It was one of the most incredible achievements in history. Who among our career politicians today would be capable of such a feat?
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