I think this hits the nail on the head; even though writ small, it really speaks to the massive problem we have as US Citizens that have a Government that has grown too large, too activist, and too intrusive – in short, a philosophy that believes that if we write enough laws and regulations, we will have “a virtuous people”:
SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher has given an excellent speech on the titular question. The whole thing is a must read, but this passage jumps out at me:
… sadly, we at the SEC are not doing nearly enough to ensure that small businesses have the access to capital that they need to grow. We layer on rule after rule until it becomes prohibitively expensive to access the public capital markets. Only rarely do we remove any of our rules, even after they have long since ceased to serve their purpose or have become obsolete or worse. And although we have made significant progress in expanding our economic analysis of new rules and rule amendments, we almost never consider how heavily the weight of the entire corpus of rules bears down on registrants.
Too much, and we can never have less when it comes to Government. While the speech is about how hard the US Government is making it to raise capital, aren’t the bolded parts speaking to the issue in the larger sense? Rule after rule, law after law (heck, just look here!) – it is never “enough” for those that must keep thinking “just one more and we’ll have it nailed!”. Instead, we have a deadweight of thousands laid upon us by those that believe they can make things better. And in some cases, they believe they can make things easier if we would only just read yet another 10 pages of “stuff” that in itself, links off to multiple pages of other stuff.
Speaking of doing too much and getting rid of some of the pile, VP Joe Biden wants more and “thinks that the TEA Party folks just hate Government”:
Monday in an interview with The New York Times’ First Draft, Vice President Joe Biden said the Tea Party is to blame for Washington D.C. gridlock because their anti-government views stops lawmakers from “arriving at a consensus.”
Rather, I think the existing gridlock is good because it shows that the system SHOULD lock up if a consensus is not reach. The proper role of government is not to “do stuff” but rather to protect our Rights. But I digress:
Biden said, “There are a lot of good people involved in the Tea Party but their objective is they don’t want the government involved in anything. They are not liberal or conservative they are anti government ” he explained. “Their ends are met best when nothing happens,” which he concluded means, “You cannot sustain a democracy without arriving at a consensus.”
Gosh, a Democrat actually giving a complement (even halfway) to the TEA Party! But then Biden spoils it with ” don’t want the government involved in anything”. Not true – and it has been said here (and elsewhere) quite often – it is not “no Government” but a limited Government that stays within its Constitutional boundaries. Which means, as Gallagher says, making things smaller. Smaller means less areas for corruption and cronyism as there are fewer places to hide and less Govt money to beg for.
Biden is also wrong about “You cannot sustain a democracy without arriving at a consensus”. No consensus means that there is insufficient agreement to take action – at which time the proper thing is to not take action in a lot of areas (appropriate military proceedings to the expection as that IS a Constitutional duty). There is nothing wrong in ceasing activities, especially at the Federal level. As I keep on saying, even though it offends Progressives that would do ANYTHING to only have one centralized seat of power, we have 50 other perfectly good Governments (the States) that will continue to function if the Feds were to stop. Heck, I think it would be far better!
Do less, let Citizens and Civil Society rebound to their traditional roles instead of being crowded out all the time. The Bigger the Government, the smaller the Citizen.
(H/T: Professor Bainbridge)
