Earlier this week, Trump made a comment that maybe he wouldn’t make a deal with China until after the election. This sent stocks down quite a bit.
Aside from the fact that the tariffs are foolish and that his comments were politically foolish, there is a much larger problem here. Why does one person get to dictate the tariffs that impact 325 million people (or well over a billion people if we count the Chinese)?
This could be said about many different things, although they all go back to political power.
Why do the Federal Reserve chairman and a handful of others on the FOMC get to dictate monetary policy for the entire country? You know it is bad when the financial media is trying to parse every little word coming out of the mouth of the Fed chair.
Why do nine Supreme Court justices get to essentially make law for over 300 million people?
Why does the president have the power to start a war on his own command?
Of course, constitutionally speaking, these things aren’t really allowed. But other than some procedural stuff, the Constitution is mostly ignored. Congress has long abdicated its power to the presidency, especially when it comes to war-making power. The Congress delegated the little power it had over monetary policy to a central bank in 1913, which now fully controls the money supply and can manipulate interest rates.
Both major parties will complain about the other, but rarely do you hear suggestions that the power should be eliminated. Instead, they want to obtain the power. This is the difference between a libertarian and anyone else. A true libertarian understands that you have to take away the power.
Cutting Budgets
As Harry Browne liked to say (quoting Michael Cloud), the problem isn’t the abuse of power; it’s the power to abuse.
The only solution is to remove this power. That will only happen when a sizeable percentage of the population demands this. People need to withdraw their consent.
Most people do consent to the system. They will complain a lot about government and particular politicians, but they still endorse the system.
The Patriot Act, which the government relies on as an excuse for its surveillance powers, was recently extended. It was hidden in a bill that went through Congress. There is little uproar except for libertarians and perhaps a tiny few on the far left.
It is interesting that Democrats cry all day long about what a horrible person Trump is and how he should be removed from office. Yet, they fully endorse the things that give him more power. Maybe the surveillance state isn’t the best example of that, since it was probably used against Trump and his campaign, but you get the point. Why are you giving more power (including spending power) to someone you so despise?
There is only one solution to all of this. It is to drastically reduce government power. And the only way to do that is to cut budgets, preferably all the way in order to eliminate entire departments.
As long as budgets are passed to fund all of these alphabet agencies, then there will be major power available. And as long as major power is available, bad people will seek out this power and abuse this power. This is why the worst tend to get on top.
Trump is bad on many things, but he is not the worst. This is why the establishment hates him so much. They will only tolerate the reliable criminals who will always support the military-industrial complex and the rest of big government.