LibertyVoter.Org

By Ryan Bourne

Ryan Bourne

Why are even supporters of free markets so apologetic about
them? I ask after coming late to Brexit Secretary David Davis’s
speech in Vienna 10 days ago, which sadly amplified Left-wing
stereotypes about a market economy.

The purpose of Davis’s intervention, of course, was to signal
that post-Brexit Britain would dovetail with EU regulations and
competition law to facilitate a “deep” and
“comprehensive” new partnership. Yet Davis actually went
much further, seemingly making a virtue of more state regulation
under the synonym of “high standards”.

Alluding to an alternative world of deregulated markets as
“an — Anglo-Saxon race to the bottom” and “a
Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction,” he was
doing the work of anti-capitalists for them. Unwittingly he was
lending credence to a flawed state-socialist idea — that
anything not controlled by government amounts to dangerous
disorder.

Nobody believes all state regulation is useless, of course.
Sometimes markets do fail. Global standards can facilitate trade.
EU rules which prevent state subsidies (despite the Corbynistas’
wailing) are a blessing for UK consumers and taxpayers too, rather
than a curse. But does the UK government really believe the EU is
the pinnacle of economic dynamism and there are no areas where
deregulation is appropriate?

There is tons of evidence
markets deliver regulatory structures that enhance customer welfare
without the need for government oversight.

Dieter Helm’s government Cost of Energy Review explained how
Brexit could allow ways to hit carbon targets at much lower cost.
The Conservative Party itself campaigned for years on repatriating
social and employment legislation from Brussels, presumably to
change it. The EU’s regulatory approach on agriculture is widely
acknowledged to curb innovation, too. Even the Governor of the Bank
of England Mark Carney (no Brexiteer) has said the cap on bankers’
bonuses, some insurance regulation and rules on challenger banks
and building societies could be rolled back after Brexit without
ill effects. Indeed, the Governor went out of his way to explain
such actions would not constitute a “race to the bottom”,
because the rules were unnecessary.

Why then would a government be so dismissive of deregulating or
imply that their intention was to simply entrench and extend
regulation? With this and increasing calls for a customs union, our
politicians seem determined to tie our hands against using any
repatriated powers in a pro-growth way.

If Davis’s speech is genuinely reflective of how Conservatives
now think about regulation, then Brexit is the least of our
problems. When Jeremy Corbyn says the fact we all have one
letterbox is justification for zero competition in the postal
service, a regulatory arms race with Labour is not something
Conservatives can win. In fact, …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By Alberto Mingardi

Alberto Mingardi

MILAN — Italy’s election results are being hailed as a
victory for the populists. But more than anything, the vote is the
failure of the country’s establishment.

Matteo Renzi’s ability to destroy political capital has been
astonishing. The former prime minister compounded one mistake after
another, and became odious to most Italians, only 19 percent of
whom voted for his Democratic Party on Sunday. Moreover, as he
abandons his party’s leadership, it’s not improbably that it will
end up somehow supporting a government led by the Euroskeptic
5Stars Movement.

Renzi left office after the constitutional reform he promoted
was rejected in a referendum. That ballot became less about the
proposed constitutional changes — hardly a subject that
excites the masses — than about his persona and his tenure. A
vast majority of Italians didn’t like either, as a result of a long
series of tactical mistakes.

Italy’s election results
are being hailed as a victory for the populists. But more than
anything, the vote is the failure of the country’s
establishment.

Renzi consistently adopted an electoral rhetoric that appeared
like a water-down version of his opponents’ populism. He longed for
budget deficits (though, smaller ones than those promised by his
opponents), chastised the European Union (though with far more
sober words than his opponents), and forgot all the supply-side
reforms he himself had promised.

Meanwhile, his opponent on the center right, former Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi fought his last electoral campaign with
gallant enthusiasm. He used all his repertoire of tax reforms and
televised charm.

In a mad, sometimes violent campaign, he stood out as being calm and wise, and
smoothed the edges of his coalition partners’ most anti-European
proposals. But for all his charisma, Sunday’s vote showed his
legendary ability to charm millions is gone. He was never a genuine
orchestra conductor, but virtuoso too eager to play all the
instruments by himself.

Berlusconi’s failure is not a failure of execution: It is a
failure of longer term vision. In 24 years in politics, Berlusconi
did not father a single potential successor. His candidates were
only fragile ornaments of his larger-than-life persona.

Confronted with younger, telegenic opponents — such as
League leader Matteo Salvini or the 5Stars’
soft spoken and well-mannered Luigi Di Maio – Berlusconi, for
the truly first time, appeared an old man.

His greatest accomplishment, since 1994, was his ability to win
both in the north and south of the country. That, too, is gone.
This election showed a stark polarization: The north turned to the
right, while the south voted overwhelmingly for the 5Stars.

Both Renzi’s and Berlusconi’s …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By Ryan Bourne

Ryan Bourne

No sooner had Republicans passed much needed tax reform than
they agreed to an awful budget deal that will undermine it.

Government spending is the true long-term tax burden of
government activity. So, to sustain a new, more competitive tax
code, which cuts rates, Republicans should have made spending cuts.
This was the perfect opportunity to balance the budget and lock in
reform. Instead, Republicans did the opposite: trading their
favored huge defense spending increases for Democrats’ desired
hikes in other areas. As a result, a deficit already forecast to
widen substantially will blow up much sooner, putting the gains
from tax reform in jeopardy.

Annual borrowing is now expected to bust $1.2 trillion by 2019. If tax cuts and the
budget deal are both made permanent, the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget estimates that number will rise to $2.1
trillion by 2027, pushing the debt-to-GDP ratio to well over
100 percent of GDP. This is the opposite of
what we should be doing after a sustained period of growth.

Rather than asking
politicians to vote to finance spending commitments they have
already made, as the debt ceiling does, we need a rule that binds
their hands in the first place and explicitly shows the trade-offs
associated with new spending before they vote for it.

What can be done? A prerequisite for reversing this mistake
requires Republicans and Democrats concerned with the
nation’s fiscal health to make the case for near-term fiscal
restraint and long-term entitlement reform. But evidence from
around the world shows that effective balanced budget rules can be
part of a solution too, helping politicians overcome their inherent
“deficit bias”.

The case for overall restraint should be obvious. At 77
percent of GDP, federal debt held by the public in 2016 was at
its highest level since just after World War II, and way above its
40
percent post-war average. Unlike that post-war period —
when military spending cuts, sustained growth, and high inflation
eroded the debt burden — projections now show debt ballooning
to over 150 percent of GDP over the next three decades.
The cause? Ever-rising Social Security and Medicare spending.

Such rising debt levels are not sustainable. They would leave
the federal finances dangerously exposed to negative shocks and
slow economic growth. Moreover, every year this fiscal reality is
ignored, doing something about it gets harder. Last year, the
Congressional Budget Office estimated that getting the debt-to-GDP
ratio back to its historic average of 40 percent of GDP over three
decades would require permanent spending cuts equal to 3.1 percent …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By Ted Galen Carpenter

Ted Galen Carpenter

The recent reduction in tensions between the Republic of Korea
(ROK) and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is
almost palpable. That thaw was especially evident with the cordial
atmosphere at the Winter Olympics. Not only did Pyongyang send a
team to participate in the games, and march into the stadium along
with the South Korean team under a special joint flag during the
opening ceremonies, but North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s
sister, Kim Jo Yong, was an honored guest in the dignitaries box. During
the proceedings, the North Korean government invited South Korean
President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang, and there are now prospects
for bilateral talks to reopen the joint economic complex at
Kaesong. Even before the Olympics, a warming relationship between
the two Koreas was apparent, as Moon sought to defuse the worrisome
tensions on the Peninsula.

China and others have welcomed the thaw in
relations between the two Koreas and hope that it will become the
foundation for progress in reducing the danger of war.
Unfortunately, improved inter-Korean relations do little to resolve
the core issue in the ongoing North Korea crisis: the impasse
between the United States and the DPRK over the latter’s
nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Moreover, the Trump
administration does not seem entirely pleased with the embryonic
rapprochement between the two Koreas. Vice President Mike Pence
ostentatiously snubbed Kim Yo Jong during the
opening ceremonies at the Olympics, even though she was seated
barely three feet away from him. And although the administration
indicated a willingness to consider participating in preliminary talks with North Korea, there
was little evidence of enthusiasm for that step.

Indeed, Washington appears firmly committed to maintaining an
uncompromising stance regarding the issue of Pyongyang’s
nuclear and missile ambitions. In early February, U.S. special
envoy Joseph Yun reiterated that all options
(implicitly including military force) remain on the
table—although he did state his belief that peaceful options
were not yet on the brink of exhaustion. More ominous was the
comment of a senior member of Congress that Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson might have only 8
to 10 months to resolve the North Korea crisis through
diplomacy.

Improved inter-Korean
relations do little to resolve the core issue in the ongoing North
Korea crisis: the impasse between the United States and the DPRK
over the latter’s nuclear and ballistic missile
programs.

The crucial point is that Washington, not Seoul, controls the
decision regarding war or peace toward North Korea. ROK leaders are
either oblivious to that reality or refuse to acknowledge its
potentially horrific …read more

Source: OP-EDS