Monday, December 03, 2007

Pro-pork libertarianism

Steve Conover has a good example:

In 1991, Senator Al Gore cosponsored the legislation that funded the creation of the internet. Gore saw its importance, surmised it could be a big part of our future, and understood it would happen more quickly and effectively with government sponsorship (aka, "government spending"). So he took the initiative, and sponsored "An Act to provide for a coordinated Federal program to ensure continued United States leadership in high-performance computing, and for other purposes." Subsequently, after his legislation became law, Gore was a leading proponent of privatizing the internet—another good idea.

If Tom Tancredo had been a member of Congress in 1991, my guess is he would have voted against Al Gore's legislation, after labeling it "more government spending we can't afford," or maybe just "pork." But he wasn't yet in Congress in 1991; at that time, he was heading up a regional office of the Education Department—firing 2/3 of its staff, presumably under the assumption that "government spending" is always a waste of money. [Oversimplifications like that are indiscriminate, and block government from investing in our future. I think Gore's sponsorship of the creation of the internet is one of many good examples of good, growth-friendly investments by the federal government. It would be nice to hear more investment ideas from our politicians, wouldn't it? I wonder if Tom Tancredo has any of those—or if he's pretty much just a cost-cutter.]

But I'm thinking it's pretty hard to separate the meat from the fat, at least without a couple of decades or generations to measure outcomes.

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