The following commentaries on the restraint of government originally appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Craig Westover is a Senior Policy Fellow with the Minnesota Free Market Institute; Dane Smith is President of the think tank Growth & Justice.

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The problem with progressives

Craig Westover – Pioneer Press 6/19/2008

Credit where credit is due: The symposium on ‘Minnesota’s Progressive Republican Tradition’ that progressive think tank Growth & Justice has scheduled during the Republican National Convention is pretty good PR. Pushing progressivism is what Growth & Justice is all about, and what better stage to co-opt than the GOP national convention.

However, I must drop the other shoe: Praise for Growth & Justice ends with acknowledging its pragmatism. The notion that we are all progressives now — or, if not, we should be — is a dangerous challenge to constitutionally limited government.

Progressives, it seems, don’t want to be called “liberals” anymore. I don’t blame them. Big-government liberalism has degenerated into a politics of arrogance and willful ignorance of economic realities.

Speaking in Minneapolis earlier this year, liberal DFL Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller asserted: “I think it’s simplistic and naive to say people can spend their money better than the government. … The notion that everybody can individually spend their money better than government I just think is trite, wrongheaded and antidemocratic.”

A “progressive,” by contrast, shuns such arrogance. Instead, he advocates for higher marginal tax rates with the humble totality of religious conviction; a “progressive” tax system based on “ability to pay” is the moral thing to do (hence, growth and justice). That is not willfully ignorant economic argument; it is not economic argument at all. It is moral argument, dividing the world into the self-sacrificing good and the selfishly individual.

Progressivism is politics as religion. Left-leaning progressivism strives to impose values on society every bit as aggressively as the Christian right pushing a moral agenda of “family values.” Whether the supreme authority over individual liberty is a secular state or a religious one, the operative word is “supreme.” Progressivism is ultimately about total control.

Progressivism is immune to restraint; it respects no constitutional limits on government. The progressive may prefer the near-sacramental word “holistic” to describe the effort to create a better world, but, as National Review’s Jonah Goldberg reminds us, Mussolini coined the word “totalitarian” for the progressive vision — a society where everyone belongs, where everyone is taken care of, where everything is inside the state and nothing is outside the state, where there are no hard trade-offs.

“Growth” and “justice” are both desirable, and the progressive believes this makes them compatible irrespective of the laws of economics. Equality and freedom are both good things; therefore the progressive justifies state intervention to eliminate conflict among the vicissitudes of fate and the variability of personal ambition, so that all might be free to achieve their potentials.

Consensus among “experts,” the high priests of progressivism, determines how much growth is just (what level of private profit becomes “unreasonable”) and the appropriate ratio of equality to freedom (everyone “chooses” among state-run health plans).

Everyone, says the progressive, has the “right” to a useful job at a fair wage, a decent home, medical care, a good education and adequate protection from economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment. Concern that such “rights” necessarily impose obligations on others is negated by the righteous beliefs that we all have moral obligations to our fellow citizens, and moral obligation to the “common good” can be coerced by the police power of the state.

That brings us back to the Growth & Justice concept of a “progressive Republican” — which is analogous to “agnostic Lutheran.”

The operative word is “agnostic.” “Lutheran” is the set of beliefs the “agnostic Lutheran” no longer holds. His beliefs are agnostic, not Lutheran.

Likewise, the operative word in “progressive Republican” is “progressive.” “Republican” is the set of principles the “progressive Republican” no longer holds. He is in essence a “progressive” shunning Republican principles to use the police power of the state for the collective good of the people at the expense of the inalienable rights of the person.

The Growth & Justice symposium not withstanding, “progressive Republican” is a chimerical fiction. So is “progressive Democrat.” One believes in constitutionally limited government — in individual economic liberty and personal liberty protected by the rule of law — or one does not. good PR does not equate with good public policy.

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In the mainstream – legitimately
Dane Smith – Pioneer Press6/25/2008
Thanks to conservative columnist Craig Westover for recognizing the ‘pretty good PR” in the event that Growth & Justice is sponsoring on Sept. 3, during the Republican National Convention, and our salute to ‘Minnesota’s Progressive Republican Tradition.”

But he went way out in the weeds with his assertions (”The problem with progressives,” June 20) about what progressives — certainly the pragmatic variety here at Growth & Justice — actually think and stand for.

It is just preposterous to assert that progressives as represented by Growth & Justice are mounting a “dangerous challenge to constitutionally limited government,” or that progressivism is ultimately about “total control” or totalitarianism. We also strenuously object to his claim that we are “immune to restraint” or that we represent a “politics of arrogance and willful ignorance of economic realities.”

No matter how widely he wanders to gather his libertarian proof points, Westover always gets around to the same dark world view: Our state and national governments essentially are illegitimate and are using the “police power of the state” to transfer money from one set of people to another set of people.

He manages to link Growth & Justice with a nefarious cabal of statist confiscators including Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, agnostic Lutherans, DFL Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller and stalwart Republican Minnesota governors such as Harold Stassen, Al Quie and Arne Carlson — some of the leaders being honored by the event that sparked his latest broadside.

Here’s a fundamental point Westover keeps missing: There’s all the difference in the world between undemocratic governments under brutal dictators and democratic governments, like our own, that are responsive to the will of the people and largely a force for good. We’ve fought wars over this difference in legitimacy. And our governments, “of the people, by the people and for the people,” should be a point of pride for Americans and Minnesotans.

Contrary to Westover’s hyperbole, here’s a little more information about what Growth & Justice actually believes: We cut taxes too much in the last decade. Because of a wrongheaded no-new-taxes orthodoxy, we invested too little in public education, transportation (and bridges), health care and environmental protections. We think the overall size of our state and local public sector during Republican Gov. Arne Carlson’s administrations in the 1990s was about right, and typical of a Minnesota formula for success for more than 30 years, when our economic growth was more robust than it is now.

In today’s dollars, a 1990s-sized public sector for Minnesota would be a couple billion dollars more now than then, on a base of about $35 billion. But that’s a mere 1 or 2 percentage points more in the Price of Government, which is the official Minnesota Finance Department measure of total revenue as a percentage of total income. The difference between a 16 percent Price of Government in fiscal year 2008 and 17.5 percent in 1998 probably does not strike most reasonable people as the difference between “constitutionally limited government” and jack-booted, Mussolini-style totalitarianism.

Westover selectively quotes Pogemiller to wrongly suggest that progressives think the government can spend all your money better than you can, but leaves out Pogemiller’s larger point at a community meeting in March that “no matter how rich you are, you can’t build a freeway system by yourself … (or) a public educational system by yourself.”

He also misses the main point of our event at the GOP convention. A progressive orientation toward governing, which invests in human capital so more people have an opportunity to prosper, has been an admirable and distinctively Minnesota trait exemplified in all major parties.

Examples abound throughout our history of Republicans’ embrace of both progressive reform and good-government accountability: Gov. Harold Stassen’s early backing of civil rights in the 1930s and civil service reform that cleaned up serious corruption in state employment; Gov. Al Quie’s practical and humane compromise in raising income taxes to address a budget crisis, and his lifetime of service on behalf of prison inmates and judicial quality; Gov. Arne Carlson’s fiscal discipline coupled with visionary planning and wise investment in the MinnesotaCare program, providing health care for working families.

Private enterprise and governments both have great capacity to improve life. There are ideologues at the extremes who think one or the other ought to reign supreme, but that does not represent the Growth & Justice position. Nor does it accurately reflect the mainstream Minnesota view that our good life results from a balance between good government and a vigorous free market.

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Government’s legitimacy is grounded in restraint
Craig Westover – Pioneer Press6/30/2008
I am quite pleased to see how quickly Growth & Justice President Dane Smith responded (”In the mainstream – legitimately,” June 25) to my June 20 column (”The problem with progressives”) in which I asserted my mistrust of progressive politics. Like my dental hygienist, I get a little pleasure out of hitting a nerve.

Smith “strenuously” objects to my contention that progressives are immune to restraint, and he finds the notion “preposterous” that progressivism is a dangerous challenge to constitutionally limited government. Yet nowhere in his piece does he say what it is that restrains progressives from expanding government beyond legitimacy. And that is really what the debate is all about.

Let’s put to rest the notion Smith attributes to me that our government is “illegitimate” – government is legitimate. What I question as illegitimate is the scope of activities Smith would endow with government authority.

The Declaration of Independence establishes that governments are instituted among men to secure the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Smith’s view not withstanding, government is not instituted to create a better world through the “visionary planning and wise investment” of an elected few.

The declaration goes on to state that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. Smith misses the word “just” when he chides me for failure to recognize the difference between “undemocratic governments under brutal dictators” and “democratic governments that are responsive to the will of the people and largely a force for good.” The legitimacy of a government is not determined by whether that government is a democracy, a republic or even a dictatorship, or whether it is “largely a force for good” or “in the mainstream.” Every form of government can exercise tyranny. Each has.

Just authority legitimizes government. Just authority is the inherent right an individual has to secure his own unalienable rights, which he can, therefore, justly consent to government. I have a right to recovery if someone steals from me; I can consent that power to government through police and courts. I have no right to band together with my friends to rob our rich neighbor to help our poor neighbor. I cannot consent that power, which I do not have, to government.

Just authority is not any old power that at one time or another 51 percent of the people think is a good idea or a legislature or executive can usurp based on an election mandate.

That brings us to the crux of the question.

I argue that the declaration’s principles and the language of the Constitution both legitimize and constrain government power. Smith believes that the will of the people endows government with both legitimacy and authority. The question he ignores is, “What restrains the will of the people to expand government authority beyond legitimacy?”

The best answer I can infer from Smith’s piece is I ought to trust the “pragmatic” progressivism of Growth & Justice and Smith’s personal sense of “balance between good government and a vigorous free market.”

Here’s why I am leery of betting my freedom on such trust:

Growth & Justice, according to Smith, believes we have invested too little in public education, transportation, health care and environmental protections. OK, let’s assume Smith is correct. At the same time we were saying “no” to more investment, we were also saying “yes” to a plethora of wealth-transferring, behavior-modifying, regulation-imposing programs of dubious merit and less constitutional authority. We created monopoly education and government-regulated health care systems that limit individual choice. We made transportation policy intent on engineering behavior and guiding development rather than increasing mobility. We expanded the scope of government “service” well beyond what is authorized by either the state or federal constitution, or by a decent respect for individual independence.

Yet, Smith argues that government in the last decade was “restrained” because the “price of government” was a constant. The “price of government” is a formula that determines the “proper” size of government based on the total income of the state.

In other words, government is restrained not by rule of law or enumerated powers, but by how diligently you and I produce wealth. The more wealth we create, according to Smith, the more government is entitled to, the more government we can afford and, therefore, the more government we should have – of course while maintaining a “balance between good government and a vigorous free market.”

Dane Smith is no “jack-booted, Mussolini-style totalitarian.” But his belief that life can be improved through a government restrained solely by some Hobbit-like virtue that vows to use the Tolkienesque ring of government power “largely as a force for good” is naïve and dangerous. And the longer Smith wears the ring, the more he might come to realize that good intentions are not an adequate check on unrestrained government power. Ultimately, however, it is your individual liberty that hangs in Smith’s progressive balance between good government and a vigorous free market.

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Government as an agent of progress
Dane Smith – Pioneer Press7/1/2008
It’s a good thing around Independence Day to be having an old-fashioned American argument over the proper role of our governments. And thanks again to the Pioneer Press for letting us make the progressive case in response to libertarian columnist Craig Westover’s latest counter-counter point on the subject.
We’re finally getting somewhere when Westover says ‘government is legitimate” (and I’m assuming he’s talking about all of them: federal, Minnesota, city and county, and the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District). Government as an agent of progress
7/1/2008 11:14 AM

It’s a good thing around Independence Day to be having an old-fashioned American argument over the proper role of our governments. And thanks again to the Pioneer Press for letting us make the progressive case in response to libertarian columnist Craig Westover’s latest counter-counter point on the subject.

We’re finally getting somewhere when Westover says ‘government is legitimate” (and I’m assuming he’s talking about all of them: federal, Minnesota, city and county, and the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District).

And let’s give libertarians their due on a fundamental point: Restraint is necessary. The power of government, even our own largely good and effective ones, is coercive. If you break laws or fail to pay your taxes, you go to jail, so we need just laws and fair taxes. Governments need to be restrained, checked and balanced, open to challenge and inspection, kept within bounds, always respectful of individual rights and liberty.

The erosion of civil liberties brought on by an over-reaction to fear of terrorists is a clear example of what can happen when the collective impulse overrides individual rights. Economic liberties are important too, and the enduring and somewhat distinctive American resistance to taxes serves as a check on that front.

But Westover veers off to suggest that in the realm of public investment, taxes and spending, there’s a certain “scope of activities” favored by myself and other progressives that is illegitimate or in violation of the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.

Then he completely reverts to the dark side a few paragraphs later by declaring that we have “no right to band together … to rob our rich neighbor to help our poor neighbor” — implying any effort by democratic government to equalize opportunity and prosperity is downright criminal.

Practical progressives like those of us at Growth & Justice revere the founding documents as much as conservatives and libertarians do.

In response to Westover’s challenge to say “what it is that restrains progressives from expanding government beyond legitimacy,” we would come back to the Declaration’s assertion that “governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed” and that “it is the right of the People to alter or abolish” their governments when they fail or exceed their limits.

So there it is. Rather than picking an arbitrary tax rate or percentage of income for public investment, or specific lists of things governments can or can not do, the Founders wanted to let “the governed” decide for themselves. And our courts, even those packed with conservatives in recent years, have upheld the constitutionality of the basic structure of our federal, state and local governments’ scope of activities.

In all the inveighing by anti-government libertarians I’ve seen over many decades, I’ve seldom seen them assign a specific limit to government’s portion of income or a comprehensive list of illegitimate activities such as, say, mosquito control.

One does see frequent complaints that road-building is OK but mass transit is not, that public schools make sense but that far too much is spent, that armies and police are legitimate but that endowments for the arts and humanities are not.

In the spirit of ‘76, let’s consult a Founding Father on this parsimonious view of government. The following are the words of John Adams, our second president and a frugal, no-nonsense New Englander, from David McCullough’s recent Pulitzer Prize-winning biography.

“Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant (italics added).”

Today’s low-tax, small-government conservatives might be further surprised to hear Adams wax eloquent on the truly expansive role he set out for his own state government (liberal Massachusetts, wouldn’t you know) and a responsibility for “engineering behavior,” as Westover puts it.

A section of the Massachusetts constitution, written by Adams, calls for “spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of people … It shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences … public schools and grammar schools in the towns, to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country, to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people.”

Today’s progressives believe, as Adams did, that enlightened investments in human capital and physical infrastructure build a foundation for wider and greater prosperity. And we’re not even talking about a government-run program to encourage virtues like “sincerity” and “good humor.”