The Price of Big Government That We're Not Paying

Government Must Be Both Limited And Competent, Yorkshire Post, December 27, 2011. "In his 1978 essay on “The Power of the Powerless,” the late Vaclav Havel wrote eloquently about the importance of that sign. Under Communism, a greengrocer puts a “Workers of the world, unite!” sign up in his window. He doesn’t care what the sign says, he cares what it means. And what it means is that he’s willing to say the conventional thing, to be obedient. He knows he’s sacrificing tomorrow, but he’s gaining security today. Havel wanted elections, and it was the glory of his life that he got them, and won them. But in a democracy, an elected government exists to govern. And that is where we are failing. We are excellent at holding elections. What we do not do is govern. Our system is not like the Communist regimes that Havel detested. But we want what the greengrocer wanted. We want a quiet life. The cost of that today is the sacrifice of tomorrow."

The Long-Term Defense Problem

Britain’s Decline: Entitlements and the Armed Forces, BigPeace, April 13, 2011. "Byron York has a fine piece in the Examiner pointing out that, while Britain has taken a leading role in the Libyan intervention, there is almost nothing left militarily behind the curtain. The entire British stockpile of cruise missiles amounted to 64 when the war began, and Britain was careless enough to fire off 12 of them at the start of the conflict. That’s 20 percent of Britain’s entire arsenal, shot off in a single volley."

An American View of Britain's Spending Cuts

"From America, the Cuts Do Not Look Too Drastic," Yorkshire Post, October 29, 2010. Not available on the Yorkshire Post site due to technical issues. "In short, every Labour government since 1945 has run afoul of the skepticism of the markets. But yet, according to the left, there is never a good time to spend less. When the economy is up, it’s time to spread the wealth by spending more on the social services. When the economy is down, cutting spending will drive the nation into a depression and inflict untold horrors upon the poor. If that’s true, then the poor really must have been suffering under Labour, because Osborne’s plan is to reduce spending to the level it was at in 2007. In anything other than the shortest of terms, that will not be enough. Like the U.S., Britain has an aging population, and its entitlement programs are massively indebted. Saving billions of pounds now will not pay for trillions of pounds worth of benefits in the coming decades."

Security and Growth in the U.S. and Europe

Europe Needs Security. Europe Needs Growth. So Do We., Foreign Policy Digest, October 2010. "In one sense, the challenge facing Europe, and the United States, is the need for political leaders to present a coherent and sustained case for a stable and adequate defense budget. But both the U.S. and Europe face a more vital and more fundamental challenge."

Osborne's Doing Better Than Obama

Osborne Has A Long Way To Go, But At Least He’s Started, Yorkshire Post, June 30, 2010. "According to the Left, there is never a good day to cut government spending. When the economy and tax revenues are growing, the Left wants to spend more because it can. When the economy is stagnant and tax revenues are shrinking, the Left argues it has no choice but to spend more, in order to cushion the blow. The result is that progressive governments transfer money from savers to spenders, from the productive economy to the unproductive state, and from the unborn to the living. For progressive governments, the economy is a goose that will keep on laying golden eggs, no matter what they do to it."

Britain's Skint. Are We Next?

"I’m Afraid to Tell You There’s No Money Left," Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 19, 2010. "When Britain’s new Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, walked into his office last week, he found a letter from his predecessor, Liam Byrne. Laws assumed it contained useful advice. But when he opened the envelope, he found that the letter – which he characterized as “honest but slightly less helpful” than he had expected – had only a single line . . ."

The Five Myths of US Defense Spending

Demystifying Defense: Exposing Myths About US Military Expenditures, Harvard International Review, Spring 2009, Vol. 31, No. 1. "The most serious impediments to a serious discussion of defense spending are the myths that surround it. Until these myths are cleared away, no rational debate regarding what the US and its allies around the world should do to secure their interests is possible. The most urgent need, therefore, is for politicians and the public to know how much the US and other powers spend, to place these expenditures and their trends in historical context, to weigh the dangers of both excessive and insufficient defense spending, to understand why the US and the world's democracies maintain armed forces, and why the US spends so much relative to its potential adversaries. Absent this knowledge, the political process that shapes defense spending in democracies will not work effectively, and their defense will suffer. In short, for today's democracies, defense spending is not an economic problem. A people who lack the will to pay will eventually find they are a target for those who have the will to fight."

If You Liked the Stimulus, You'll Love the Entitlements

Global Financial Crisis=Minnow. Entitlements Crisis=Whale, Heritage Foundation Foundry, March 20, 2009.