2013 wasn’t a great year for liberty in the USA

John Stossel:

This wasn’t a great year for liberty. Here’s a look at a few disasters the government caused:

1. ObamaCare
It was supposed to “bend the cost curve” downward. The central planners had lots of time to perfect their scheme. For a generation, the brightest left-wing wonks focused on health care policy. The result? Soviet-style consumer service comes to America.

2. The government shutdown
The real disaster was the unnecessary panic over it. Zoos would shut down, and baby pandas would starve.

The media made it sound like America might not survive even slightly limited government. They were happy to echo the politicians’ claim that there’s no wasteful or stupid spending to cut. “The cupboard is bare,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi, (D-Calif.) “There’s no more cuts to make.” Nothing to cut? Government spends $3.8 trillion a year!

Many Republicans are almost as eager to spend as Democrats, despite the difference in rhetoric between the two parties.

About the only spending reduction Republicans accomplished in the past few years was the so-called “sequester” — which really happened by legal default because the two parties couldn’t reach an agreement.

The sequester instituted cuts of about $85 billion a year, a mere sliver of that $3.8 trillion budget and a still smaller sliver of our $17 trillion debt. Yet even those modest cuts will not happen now under the new congressional agreement.

Because some Republicans were upset the sequester made small cuts to the military’s budget and were fearful another partial government shutdown might hurt their chances in upcoming elections, they gave up the modest spending discipline the sequester imposed.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, (R-Ohio), said conservatives who want to keep the sequester are “ridiculous.”

The Republican behind the new agreement, Rep. Paul Ryan, (R-Wis.), was once called a fanatical budget-slasher who wanted to push Granny off a cliff. People talked about him reading Ayn Rand and being a cutthroat capitalist. But now, even he abandons the meager budget cuts that were already scheduled.

I suppose Republicans feel they have no choice. They face Democrats who will cut nothing.

Read more