Speaking of rain dances, an interesting petition from MoveOn, of all things:
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I'll dance for rain....signed
Mike
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Ditto!! Signed and added a comment with word "Libertarian" in it. Good rain dance!
Marcy
Strange as it may sound, I have very mixed feelings about this petition. Don't get me wrong -- congressional and presidential salaries need to be cut, and I would jump at the opportunity to support such action as a stand-alone measure.
But libertarians have learned to be students of incentives, and the incentives being created here are not helpful, but just the opposite. Congressional pay is a drop in the bucket compared to overall government personnel costs, which tend to be inflated by market standards, and badly need cutting to help get government spending under control. But if Congress is not able to impose these cuts -- already a politically difficult task -- without cutting their own pay, it will make it that much less likely that they will summon the courage to do so.
I suspect that the people running Change.org understand this quite well and that's why they are cleverly seeking to link the issues. Have they and their colleagues on the left been previously clamoring for congressional pay cuts? Not that I've noticed. I don't think that is their real concern at all. I think their goal is to keep the larger government gravy train chugging along.
Cutting congressional pay would be terrific, but in the context of making other government pay cuts conditional on Congress cutting members' pay I think it's a political mistake.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Excuse me, I meant MoveOn.org, not Change.org. If they have been supporting congressional and presidential pay cuts in the past as stand-alone changes, I'm willing to reconsider my assessment of their motives, but I don't think they have.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
I totally agree with Starchild.
As a matter of fact, it should be the reverse. Congressional pay should be increased when they save us money.
Oh, totally! There is a ton of other non-libertarian points in this petition. However, the main issue here and now in this particular petition is cutting presidential and congressional salaries; which to me sounds like something for me to be getting behind!
Marcy