Just read a great piece by Ross Douthat that really gets at (what should be) the primary issue in this presidential campaign. He compares the growing concentration of power in our nation’s capital to “the ruthless Capital in ‘The Hunger Games,’ [with] the wealth of Washington is ultimately extracted from taxpayers more than it is earned. And over the last five years especially, D.C.’s gains have coincided with the country’s losses.”
He cites “new census data” which reveal “that 7 of the 10 richest American counties in 2011 were in the Washington, D.C., region”;
For Mitt Romney and the Republican Party, what’s happened in Washington these last 10 years should be a natural part of the case against Obamanomics. Our gilded District is a case study in how federal spending often finds its way to the well connected rather than the people it’s supposed to help, how every new program spawns an array of influence peddlers, and how easily corporations and government become corrupt allies rather than opponents.
(Via HotAir headlines.) Read the whole thing.
(More on this anon as time allows.)
In fairness, the ever-increasing flow of wealth to the Capitol has been underway for quite some time, as Douthat points out. The bureaucracy and the contractors that live off of it have taken on lives of their own.
Assuming Romney and the GOP see this as a problem, the case needs to be made to the voters in the hinterlands outside of DC that this isn’t just left-right politics, it’s an existential threat. The discussion won’t be pleasant but the truth needs to be faced. And the GOP needs to concede some truths – such as that free trade does have losers (unless one thinks funding the Chinese military buildup is a win). (Before being piled on, let me say that free trade should be the default policy but not a religion.)
People need to be made to understand that their government is bought and paid for as a result of bigness. A smaller government wouldn’t attract so much graft simply because it wouldn’t be in the position to decide winners and losers.
Why don’t we start over, with a new Capitol in Kansas or somewhere, actually in the real center of the country. The Washington DC-NYC-Philly area is way too congested anyway. Make for easier trips for all concerned.
Andy is correct. Let Washington, D.C. remain as the model city for social engineering and Utopian planning and repurpose the buildings as condos.
Move of the government to Mc Henry County, North Dakota. Give each resident one million dollars for the insult. Build a ginormous air port and an all season shopping mall. House the government workers and representatives in fundamentally perfect, socially engineered projects. Have roads leading in, but none going out. Give mining and drilling rights preference over all other activities and protect every endangered blade of grass, minnow and tick. All Supreme Courts cases will be argued outdoors in the nude in mid February with the Court lounging in a spa and watching it on CCTV. Require the main stream media to have permanent residence in the government compound and all reporters must live and socialize with regular critters, human and fauna. Name Wal-Mart the national store and require every resident to do 80% of their shopping there. Ban Chick-Fil-A and PBS. Make Al Sharpton the Mayor and Chris Matthews the national mouthpiece.
Hey, speaking of a bloated government that extracts from taxpayers, i.e., from our nation’s job- and wealth-creators… “55 percent of small business owners would not start company today, blame Obama”.
RTWT.