Friday, September 27, 2019

Whether Trump Stays or Goes, We Need To Rein in Presidents and Congress

As the impeachment process gets underway-and grows more partisan and frenetic with every passing minute-it's important to keep our eyes on the big picture that actually affects all Americans.

For decades, the presidency has been getting more and more imperial, with Oval Office occupants openly flouting constraints on their exercise of power and Congress abdicating its role in doing anything other than spending more money and acting out of partisan interests.

From this libertarian's perspective, impeachment is a distraction from the far more important-and daunting-problem of a government that costs more of our money and controls more of our lives with every passing year.

Does Trump deserve to get the hook? There's no question that he has acted abrasively since taking office, always pushing the envelope of acceptable behavior, decorum, and policy, whether by issuing travel bans specifically targeting Muslims, staffing the White House with his manifestly unqualified children and their spouses, or redirecting money to build his idiotic fence against the phantom menace of Mexican hordes bum-rushing the southern border.

Barack Obama was mostly polite and more presentable to the public, but he similarly evinced nothing but contempt for restraints on his desired aims.

Like his predecessors, he has arrogated more power to himself while also driving up deficits and diminishing trust and confidence in the ability of government to perform basic functions.

All of the Democratic candidates for president have pledged to spend trillions of dollars on an ever-proliferating series of new programs such as Medicare for All, free college tuition, the Green New Deal, a universal basic income, and more.


https://reason.com/2019/09/26/whether-trump-stays-or-goes-we-need-to-rein-in-presidents-and-congress/

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