… if he is of a conservative bent, with one breath bemoans the high taxes, the oppressive regulations, and the general government ineptitude and cronyism that have made the domestic economy weaker than it would otherwise have been – and then, with his very next breath, demands that this same inept and corrupt government impose yet more taxes and yet additional regulations on his fellow-citizens’ economic affairs as a means of allegedly protecting these citizens from the ill-effects of high taxes and oppressive regulations.
It’s an astonishing line of protectionist ‘reasoning.’
This protectionist – if he is an American – insists that the taxes and economic interventions that have burdened Americans over the past several decades have left us disadvantaged, weak, and nearly helpless in the face of competition from – whom? From the people of communist China! From the competition of people who have endured indescribably worse battering and oppression than we Americans have ever endured from our own government, and who to this day remain far less economically free than do Americans. (According to the repeated Fraser Institute Index, the U.S. today is tied for the eleventh-freest economy in the world, while China is the 112 ‘freest.’)
