Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
While listening to this week's Ricochet podcast at the gym, I was struck by how Rob, Peter, James and Pat Sajak were stumped by the question of whether a big government program had ever been repealed. Rob took this to press his theory that the Democrats have succeeded by creating Obamacare, which will hook the American people on yet another permanent entitlement.
Should conservatives despair -- I think at least one example exists. The one that popped in my head right during the podcast: Prohibition. It was perhaps the largest federal intervention in daily life ever, telling Americans not to pursue their favorite pastime. It took a constitutional amendment (the 18th) to establish in 1920, and a big bureaucracy to enforce. But it was repealed by 1933 -- it had led to widespread disobedience to the law and the rise of organized crime. An example of the progressives' use of the federal government to enforce morality on the nation -- and the nation couldn't stand it.
Ricochet: are there other examples?
Peter suggested the 1996 welfare reform -- that indeed was a sweeping reform, but not wholesale root and branch removal.
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Jun '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
As Dennis Prager says, "the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." Because, everything that the government does for you, and you no longer do for yourself, takes one more of your precious free choices away. Not having health insurance may not be a wise choice, but it's a choice. You can make everybody safe, if you wrap them in Kevlar and fence them into organic collective farms, but safe is never the same thing as free. I like free.
May '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
The repeal of Prohibition seems largely irrelevant. Prohibition was not an entitlement. It was a ban of a literally ancient practice nearly universal in human experience: alcohol. Prohibition was lunacy. And its repeal threatened to remove nothing from the lives of voters.
Compare that with Social Security, the Department of Education, etc. The government actions which are nigh impossible to repeal are ones which provide something tangible to American voters which they quickly assume as part of "normal" life.
However, didn't the Supreme Court strike down some of FDR's attempts to regulate business? It seems regulations, as opposed to entitlements, can be repealed without need of miracles.
May '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
I wonder how tricky repealing ObamaCare will be, not in terms of the constitutional requirements, but in terms of 2 issues:
1) The large volume of regulations (and boards, commissions, etc.) that, by 2013, will have been created pursuant to the statute, and,
2) The amount of capital and human planning that would be disrupted, with yet another radical change in the regulatory regime governing health care.
On 1), I've rarely looked at the CFR, but I imagine that all regulations explicitly state in a preamble their underlying statutory authority, such that when the statute falls, the regulation should fall too. However, bureaucrats crave power, and I can imagine some borough-ed in bureaucrats - understanding the unpopularity of ObamaCare - attempting to borough in thier regulations, perhaps by stating that they are pursuant to ObamaCare plus some other un-repealed statutes, such that it will require litigation to strike down the regulations. Or the bureaucrats will set up executive branch adjudicatory bodies that will secure commitments from insurance companies outlasting the ObamaCare statute. Or the bureaucrats will perpetuate their power, by some means I'm not thinking of now.
Can't elaborate on 2); there's a 200 word limit.
May '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
Aaron Miller:
However, didn't the Supreme Court strike down some of FDR's attempts to regulate business? · Aug 1 at 9:57am
Doh! Court decisions are not relevant to legislative repeal. Ignore me.
Regulations do seem easier to repeal than entitlements, though.
Jul '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
The real question is not Can We...
The answer to that is Most Certainly, yes we can.
The actual question is "Will We"
Unfortunatly, the Establishment Republican Leadership is so Spineless they wouldn't know a mandate if it hit them over the head.
The proof of my argument is Chris Christie. He WILL!
It isn't a matter of can and can't, it is a matter of deciding to.
May '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
Jaydee_007: The real question is not Can We...
The answer to that is Most Certainly, yes we can.
The actual question is "Will We"
Unfortunatly, the Establishment Republican Leadership is so Spineless they wouldn't know a mandate if it hit them over the head
I'll repeat my question from John Yoo's previous thread:
It seems it is impossible to get even Republicans to sign a petition to repeal ObamaCare: "The discharge petition, introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), has so far garnered 153 of the 218 signatures required to bring repeal to the floor."
Does anyone know of a link listing which representatives have signed the petition and which representatives still need to hear from their constituents?
May '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
I thought that in (or right around the time of passage of) Porkulus, much or most of the welfare reforms--the time limits--we repealled, no?
Jul '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
No.
May '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
Wasn't there some kind of Medicare Tax a few years back that backfired on Congress and was repealed as soon as the voters spoke up? (I wasn't really paying attention because I didn't think it would be on the test.)
Jul '10
Re: Can We Ever Turn Back the Clock on Big Government?
I have always wanted to research the activities of the 66th US Congress and its legislation. That was the one immediately after WWI which did away with so much of the statist control of industry and consumption imposed during the war years under Wilson. I believe they overrode at least one presidential veto. Anybody else already done the heavy lifting on this one?