Big Brother State

September 14, 1964

Throughout the Democratic platform runs the assumption that practically all earthly problems can be solved by more laws, more government spending, and more government power. The preamble lists the “achievements” of the Kennedy-Johnson Administration—i.e., the new laws passed, the new appropriations made, and the new Federal agencies, bureaus, and divisions created on top of the 2,000 or more already in existence.

The list is formidable: the Area Redevelopment Administration; the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964; the Appalachian Redevelopment Act; the Equal Pay Act of 1963; the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962; the 1961 amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act; $1 billion of new loans made by the Rural Electrification Administration; more than $1 billion in new loans made since January 1961 by the Small Business Administration; the Community Health Services and Facilities Act of 1961; the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Construction Act of 1963; the Social Security Act amendments of 1961 (still further broadening benefits); the 1961 public-assistance increases; the Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963; the Health Professions Educational Assistance Act of 1963; the Vocational Education Act of 1963; 1963 legislation increasing authorization for loans to college students; the Housing Act of 1961; the Kefauver-Harris drug amendments of 1962; higher disability payments to veterans. And more.

GOVERNMENT UNLIMITED

Practically all these measures, whatever their individual merits, mean still more spending, still more controls over the economy, a still bigger entrenched bureaucracy, still further steps toward almost unlimited government intervention and government power. And what the Democratic platform promises is still more of the same: compulsory medicare, a bigger social-security program, still more unemployment insurance, government training and retraining programs, still more “commodity programs to strengthen the farm-income structure,” a bigger housing program, more handouts for urban renewal and for “Appalachia.” Finally, the platform promises “to carry the war on poverty forward as a total war.”

The spending programs are to be combined with still greater government controls. The minimum-wage level and coverage are to be increased. Compulsory overtime payments are to be increased. The one-sided immunities and special privileges now enjoyed by labor unions are to be increased.

THE NEW MAGIC

The motto of the Democratic platform, in brief, is “Let us continue.” Let us continue to pile up more laws, more compulsions, more agencies, more bureaucrats, more power, more spending, and we will bring you ever closer to an earthly paradise. Or to the Orwellian nightmare of 1984? The platform blandly forgets that government creates nothing, makes nothing, adds nothing, but can merely deflect production from one channel to another, or seize more from Peter to pay more to Paul.

But the Johnson Administration and its fiscal advisers and apologists are trying to convince us that they have discovered a new magic that enables us to eat our cake and still have it—to pay more and more to Paul while taking less and less from Peter. On top of this year’s tax cut there will be more tax cuts. We will continue to pile more deficits on top of the 28 deficits, in the last 34 years. But this time they will be planned deficits, “purposeful” deficits, and will bring us the full employment that they have failed to bring in the past.

This is a complete abandonment of even the pretense of fiscal responsibility. In 1960, the Democratic platform said: “Responsible fiscal policy requires surpluses in good times to more than offset the deficits which may occur in recessions, in order to reduce the national debt over the long run.” But all this is now forgotten, and all we are now promised is “a balanced budget in a balanced economy.” This means a budget balanced only in years of “full employment.” We have had only nine such years (six of them wartime years) in the last 35. The platform pledge is a pledge to continue inflation.