Is Trump becoming a libertarian? His call for a 50% reduction in defense spending is spot on! His deregulation EOs are spot on! His call for less government spending and lower taxes are spot on!
Will Trump move the country full speed toward limited government and free enterprise?
Has President Trump been reading libertarian literature and/or speaking with Ron Paul, the former libertarian Republican Texas congressman, who was a presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012 and other libertarian policy analysts? If so, then Trump should call for the Federal Reserve to stop manipulating interest rates and allow the market to determine short term rates. He should call for making the “dollar as good as gold” again.
Under the Fed the dollar’s purchasing power has declined virtually uninterrupted since 1913. The dollar’s purchasing power increased briefly after WWI and for several years during the Great Depression. Otherwise, the dollar’s slide especially since President Nixon severed the last link to gold on August 15, 1971. Trump can restore the purchasing power of the dollar, which would benefit all Americans, if the Fed is prevented from creating money out of thin air. If he wants to achieve MAGA ASAP, he would call for the abolition of taxes on dividends, interest, and capital gains. The US would then become a magnet for capital and interest rates would decline without the need for the Fed to intervene in credit markets. Trump should then ditch his tariff proposals. Low taxes and deregulation would do more for the US economy than reciprocal tariffs or raising tariffs unilaterally.
Trump also should make the case that the welfare state is incompatible with sound economics and economic freedom. Rothbard’s 1961 essay highlights these ideals. Voluntarism is the quintessential American way to provide social services.
If Trump embraces libertarianism, then he would restore America’s constitutional republic and throw into the dustbin of history, our welfare-warfare state.
Tom DiLorenzo on Trump’s hero, President McKinley.
Rothbard’s monograph on the why the dollar should be as good as gold.
One of the best essays ever published in the WSJ by Greg Ip. Ip’s essay on risk and insurance explains why we have a huge welfare state. Risk has been socialized in America.
Tom Woods interview Tom DiLorenzo about the Axis of Evil.
Tom DiLorenzo’z pamphlet, Axis of Evil, is now available at the Mises Institute.
Order a free copy of Rothbard’s money and banking classic monograph. Or, you can read it online here.
My December 10 talk on medical care.
Bob Murphy interviews Dr. Keith Smith of the Surgery Center of OK.
Latest podcast on healthcare with host Johnathan Westover; Incentivizing wellness podcast with Bernadette Pajer; the Human Action podcast with Bob Murphy on my American journey; Joseph Cotto and I discuss Argentina and the US, and the Human podcast with Bob Murphy on healthcare; Robert Scott Bell and I discuss healthcare on the second hour of his podcast.
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Murray Sabrin, PhD, is emeritus professor of finance, Ramapo College of New Jersey. Dr. Sabrin is considered a “public intellectual” for writing about the economy in scholarly and popular publications. His book, The Finance of Health Care: Wellness and Innovative Approaches to Employee Medical Insurance (Business Expert Press, Oct. 24, 2022), and his other BEP publication, Navigating the Boom/Bust Cycle: An Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide (October 2021), provides decision makers with tools needed to help manage their businesses during the business cycle. Sabrin's autobiography, From Immigrant to Public Intellectual: An American Story, was published in November, 2022.
What a ridiculous statement to be a libertarian you have to have principles. We have the constitution which I didn’t sign by the way and he’s shitting all over that. Why would you think he’s becoming a libertarian?
These titles and classifications are meaningless. In any event, we need leaders (as long as we accept we have masters) that are impervious to corruption, fraud and abuse. Call them honest and scrupled citizens serving the public.
No matter what you call it, there is NO reason that any government should be more than a bare bones over-watcher that guards against invasion and sees to the running of the country according to its constitution and rule of law.
It never needs to be a baby sitter or interloper with cameras and microphones in every room.