LEE’S SUMMIT, FEBRUARY 11, 2016 – In 2008, the first week of this blog, I put down my thoughts on how I was going to select the candidate I wanted to be President of the United States (click here). Eight Years later it is time to revisit this in a four-part series.
- What is their fundamental belief in Government?
- What is their social view of Government?
- What is their fiscal view of Government?
- How will they react to a crisis and how will they leave the presidency at the end of their term?
This is the first in the four-part series. As a side note, this is also a good primer for just about all the elected offices in the city, the state, and the federal government.
WHAT IS THE CANDIDATES FUNDAMENTAL BELIEF IN GOVERNMENT?
The first question immediately leads to others like: What is the purpose of government in their opinion? What is defined in the constitution as the role of the federal government?
A quick example is to ask, is the Secretary of Education part of the constitutional authority specifically given to the federal government? That answer, if you do a bit of reading, is that no there was nothing specifically put in the constitution about education. However, presidents and congress have established the Department of Education and made it a cabinet post.
There are polar opposite views of the role of Government. On the one extreme you find those that believe Government has all the power and it must be involved in every aspect of the populations’ everyday life. A recent example is New York City establishing laws that prevent the sale of 20 ounce soft drinks. The reason is that the cost of obesity affects everyone in the community and puts undue burden on the government and the tax payers.
You can see the same at the federal level with the taxes imposed on items they wish to discourage. If you smoke, you pay extra taxes.
The opposite of “the government has all the power” view is that the federal government has highly restricted powers, and those are specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Any attempt to go outside of those specific powers, are to usurp the power left to the States.
You have to understand your own thinking in this area, and then you can begin to evaluate each candidate and their positions against your own stated belief system.
Once Government steps outside of the Constitution then it begins to grow and to cost money. For example, the government is responsible for the safety of the citizenry. To accomplish that, the government collects taxes to pay for a standing Army, and further by supporting the development of weapon systems that not only support the standing army but also the National Guard and Coast Guard.
Additionally, government has the responsibility to ensure all businesses and all citizens have a leveled playing field. The laws that govern acceptable behavior for citizens must be applied fairly and equitably throughout the country. The same thing applies to business law. All businesses need to know that, in general, the rules are not going to change month to month and that they can plan for growth and fuel their own profit driven goals.
A president has to support the reining in of Government if for no other reason that the cost of intervention and bureaucracy is too high for the tax payers to support.
Where do your own thoughts fall in this area? Which Candidates best match your own belief system?
Leave some comments on this.
Respectfully Submitted
The Lee’s Summit Conservative
February 11, 2016 at 2:08 am
this:
Additionally, government has the responsibility to ensure all businesses and all citizens have a leveled playing field.
contradicts this:
A president has to support the reining in of Government if for no other reason that the cost of intervention and bureaucracy is too high for the tax payers to support.
While in theory, free market economies all for flexible pricing and flexible wages creating a perfect equilibrium point. But in practice this rarely happens except in the most commodity of commodities. In order to have a “leveled playing field” which is an artificial state in the real world. There must be “bureaucracy” and “intervention” in order to ensure this. Is there an equilibrium of that too? A perfect balance? Sure, but we will never find it. And IMO, attempting to find it is a waste of resources, get as close as you can and then adjust as needed. But its the whole “Not one left behind,” mentality that inevitably leads to exhorbitant waste and extra red tape. So allowing an imperfect system, and acknowledging that every system will never be “level” is the only way to go.