Candidates’ view of state matters

I believe the most important issue in this fall’s congressional elections is how voters communicate with candidates about the role of the state in society.

Why such an abstract, seemingly inconsequential issue?

Allow me to explain.

In every political system I can think of, it seems the phenomenon of creeping statism sets in almost as soon as the state itself is set up.

Many of those who are granted power (or, in too many situations, seize it) come to believe they can enrich themselves and their friends by bending what are supposed to be the impartial rules.

Other more scrupulous officeholders might resist this temptation for a while, but it tends to prove irresistible to those in a position to indulge it.

Some citizens who are not involved in the government might perceive the injustices being perpetrated and attempt to right them by running for office, but, much like the initially scrupulous officeholders they seek to replace, they usually end up defeated thanks to their bluntness and honesty or elected and corrupted like the rest.

As a result, those who attain power seek to cultivate and keep it — at the expense of their constituents’ liberty and prosperity, and often even at the expense of those they claim to be helping.

Because of the tendency of governments to increase their power at every opportunity, the only defense the people have, aside from arms, is their vigilance, which must be exercised at all times and used to ensure that the officials entrusted with protecting liberty are doing so.

We have witnessed the slow but accelerating process of government engorgement in the United States during the last two centuries, and, especially in recent years, it has often left voters with two unpalatable choices: on the one hand, a party driving the government’s growth with all its might — and on the other, a party that, despite being uncomfortable with increasing centralization and regulation, does little to stop it and can rarely muster the fortitude to combat it head-on.

Once again, this is the choice with which voters across America will be faced this November.

While congressional Democrats have been complicit in the enactment of every one of the Obama administration’s power grabs, congressional Republicans have been unfocused in their opposition and lackluster in their efforts to persuade voters to see things their way.

That is, the Democrats, the party of the ever-expanding state, have been steamrolling the Republicans, who are supposed to be the party of the constitutionally limited state but have usually been too busy bringing home the pork to be bothered about principle.

Thus, it is clear that neither party is terribly deserving of the confidence and trust of the people.

Before making up their minds about whom to vote for this November, voters should make an effort to press the candidates in their district on the question of what they see as the proper role of the state in society.

Voters should ask questions like these.

Should Congress be subject to limits on its power, or should it be allowed to declare any power it covets to be “necessary and proper” for executing its enumerated powers?

Is there any economic activity Congress is not allowed to regulate under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution? If not, can you explain where in the phrase “with foreign Nations, and among the several States” you find an authorization to regulate activities that occur wholly within a single state?

Do you believe that, to “provide for the ... general Welfare,” Congress should make economic or personal decisions for private citizens when it sees fit? If so, which substances’ consumption or production (from hard drugs to table salt and who knows what else) should it be allowed to restrict?

Can Congress, in compliance with the Second Amendment to the Constitution, restrict or prohibit the sale of handguns to private citizens? If so, to what extent do you think it should be allowed to abridge First Amendment freedoms?

Should the state require those who have provided adequately for themselves and their families to subsidize those who have not done so?

Should the state be allowed to declare a commodity an absolute necessity and compel each of its citizens to purchase it from a private company, under penalty of a fine (a fine that won’t be called a tax in the campaigns but will be called a tax when defended before the Supreme Court)?

Should the state be allowed to decide that some professionals’ skills are so badly needed that those professionals should have to provide their services whether they can expect to be paid or not?

Should the state be allowed to nationalize favored industries and supplant normal bankruptcy proceedings with a process that enriches union bosses at the expense of bondholders who are entitled to be repaid before anyone else?

Should the state be allowed to dictate the terms on which private citizens may deal with one another when, in its undoubtedly finite wisdom, it perceives that one party to the transaction is taking an excessive risk?

Voters should treat with extreme skepticism any candidate whose words or actions indicate an inclination to answer “yes” to any of the above questions. And then they should vote accordingly.


E-mail: jarlower@indiana.edu