There Is Only One Sure Way To Weather The Storm of This Recession: Shrink The Size of Government

So some conservatives are still demanding that dissenters on the question of Harper's budget draw them a road map to a healthier economic policy?

Been there. Done that.

But if they need a little more help, I'll make this as simple as possible.

Despite a relatively strong showing overall in international rankings of economic freedom, Canada is still unacceptably weak in the areas of government size and freedom to trade internationally. We need to decrease the personal and corporate tax burdens and eliminate all barriers to trade immediately, shrinking the size of government in the process. I can't make it any clearer than that.

In the words of Thucydides, author of the blog Uncommon Sense, writing in the comments section of a previous post of mine, "The ultimate goal should be to make Canada a North American tax haven and attract American investors and skilled workers who will be looking for a safe haven from the high tax, high regulatory and eventually high inflation of 'progressive' America."

The following are some clear ideas put simply, courtesy of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.

Please take notes, Mr. Prime Minister.

Four Lessons For Growth:

(1) Protect sound money, rule of law, and property rights

(2) Don't make multiple mistakes

(3) There is no single policy for prosperity

(4) Small government is good for the economy

For more information on Canada's relative standing in the world on the issue of economic freedom, please download Chapter 3 of the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World report at the following link and skip to page 25.

Reducing The Burden Of Government

The following is an excellent Center For Freedom & Prosperity video hosted by Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. Mitchell lucidly explains the theoretical and practical failures of the Keynesian economic model and helpfully delineates some of its greatest negative consequences in the American context, with special reference to the Great Depression and the results of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations' commitment to statism.



As Mitchell says at the end of the video, your guess is as good as mine as to why Keynesian economics has remained so popular. What's worse, it's no longer merely the crusading socialists who embrace its assumptions and methods. Witness the massive growth in government size in recent years in the United States under an allegedly conservative administration.

Perhaps by continuing to expose the fallacies of Keynesian economics we will succeed in weaning North Americans off their diet of statism and help them develop an appetite for freedom.

H/t TSC