[Phaedrus]

Beyond the $2.0+ trillion taken in by the Feds are the several hundred billion dollar Tax Code and regulatory burden and the immnese costs to society of rampant unchecked litigation. The Republicans may be willing to give us a relatively small tax cut but both the Dems and the Repubs are a Party of Big Government. Actual shrinkage is never mentioned. I would agree, however, that the Repubs are the clear lesser of two evils. I join Sobran in being The Reluctant Anarchist.

[betty boop]

...nearly all Federal legislation from the New Deal to the Great Society and beyond had been unconstitutional. Instead of fighting liberal programs piecemeal, conservatives could undermine the whole lot of them by reviving the true (and, really, obvious) meaning of the Constitution. Liberalism depended on a long series of usurpations of power.

"What the federal government isn't authorized to do, it is fobidden to do." On that basis, Phaedrus, probably 90% of what the federal government is doing right now would be things on the "forbidden list." I agree with Sobran that both major political parties are parties of "big government." We do not see the Republicans exactly rolling back big government, now do we?

But then, there is no apparent social consensus for getting the federal government back into constitutional-trim. Absent that, can we really expect that politicians will lead an effort to do that?

Thanks for the link to Sobran's great essay.