A New Kind of Politician; D. Williams

This article is from his April 29, 1975 week ly commentary on Newsroom, station KERA TV, Dallas. missible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my con stituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed their main in terest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." Those thoughts, of course, were by Senator Barry Goldwater from his longtime bestseller, The Conscience of a Conservative. Last year an Independent Liber tarian candidate for Assemblyman in New York when asked what would he do for the people as their Assemblyman, answered with "Absolutely nothing." In the 1880's Bucky O'Neill decided to run for probate judge in Arizona's Yava pai County. His statement read, "To be frank, it is not a case where the office is wearing itself out hunting for a man-not much! Here it is the man wearing him self out hunting the office-for the simple reason that it is a soft berth with a salary of $2000 per 567 568 THE FREEMAN September annum attached. While in the way of special qualifications I have no advantage over 75 per cent of my fellow citizens in the county, yet I believe I am fully competent to discharge all the duties incident to the offiee in an efficient manner, if elected. If you coincide in this opinion, support me, if you see fit.

If you do not, you will by no means jeopardize the safety of the uni verse by defeating me." Bucky was elected by eight votes. What do these three political candidates have in common? It is a recognition that politicians hurt the voter whenever they make campaign promises. It was Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee who said that whenever he heard a pol itician making campaign promises, he immediately reached for his wallet. The truth is that whenever promises are made, they must be paid by our tax dollars. Because of this we need a new kind of poli tician: one who promises not to do anything for us. This politician would recognize that he was being elected to protect the people from the government, not sell away our pocketbooks. In fact he would be hailed as a statesman when re election time rolled around by us ing as his slogan "I did nothing for you last year, and if reelected I will continue to do the same."

Opposing candidates would fight over who could do nothing better and more efficiently, and the tax payer would be better off because of it. It was Edmund Burke who said that the lives and property of all freeborn Englishmen were in jeopardy when Parliament was in session. The same could apply to America. The best thing to happen to an American taxpayer would be to have a do nothing Congress. The less mischief the politicians are in, the better. "And if reelected I promise to continue my tradition of doing nothing to the American taxpayer." Amen, Brother, Amen. t) IDEAS ON LIBERTY Worse Than Thieves WHEN YOUR MONEY is taken by a thief, you get nothing in return. When your money is taken through taxes to support needless bu reaucrats, precisely the same situation exists. We are lucky, in deed, if the needless bureaucrats are mere easy-going loafers. They are more likely today to be energetic reformers busily discourag ing and disrupting production.

HENRY HAZLITT, Economics in One Lesson TheG FractionalJOE COBB veBanking THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT that a gold-oriented monetary system is superior to a fiat monetary sys tem, from the perspecrtive of the average citizen and businessman. Monetary systems which are man aged by central banks or govern ments, as opposed to systems which arise in the market and are self-equilibrating, are prone to in flation and repudiation. The argu ments against "managed" cur rency are clearly set forth in the Theory 0 f Money and Credit by Ludwig von Mises, and it is not our purpose to argue against the gold standard. The argument of this essay is Joe Cobb is Chief Budget and Fiscal Officer of the Industrial Commission of Illinois. He has written a number of articles on economic mat ters since graduation from the University of Chicago in 1966. This article is reprinted by permission from The Gold Newsletter, Vol. IV, No.6, 1524 Hil lary Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118.