It’s no secret that a large chunk of the American people are very upset these days, mad as hell and not going to take it any more, and also no secret that family incomes that have flat-lined for the past 15 years are a large part of the problem and also no secret that neither Donald Trump nor Bernie Sanders have any good ideas of what to do about it. So, instead of loading 11 million people on boxcars and/or freeing hard-working Americans from the tyranny of made in China bobblehead dolls, I offer a few unoriginal thoughts for making life better— thoughts that, unfortunately, most liberals are constitutionally incapable of thinking:
1) End restrictive land-use policies: “Even Paul Krugman says Inequality Related to Housing Regulation,” reports a suitably stunned Breitbart News. In fact, the K-man has been saying this for a long time, to the point that he once (almost) said a nice thing about Texas. After a few drinks, Krugman will also say that rent control is a bad idea. So let’s all have a few drinks, stop worrying about “smart growth” and just let things “sprawl” (aka, let people live where they want to live instead of making them live where Al Gore thinks they ought to live).
2) End the war on drugs. Of course I’m wishing for the moon here. We can start by legalizing marijuana, entirely, lowering cocaine possession to a misdemeanor, and eliminating possession of drug “paraphernalia” as a crime. The war on drugs provides thousands of young inner-city kids with an attractive alternative to school and then gives them arrest and conviction records that make it almost impossible for them to get jobs. Plus, the only people they can relate to are criminals. Liberals aren’t the worst offenders here, but I put it on my list anyway, just because.
3) As a good neoliberal I am of course a sworn foe of all subsidies, for agriculture and for both “good” and “bad” energy sources. If liberals/environmentalists really wanted to cut down on energy consumption, they would oppose agricultural subsidies and any other subsidies for rural life (there are a lot of them). Instead, liberals support agricultural subsidies as a trade-off for support for food stamps and then think up programs that pay farmers to farm in an environmentally “responsible” manner. Usually, the farmers take the cash and do what they damn please. The liberals don’t like it, but paying farmers to do, in effect, nothing gives liberals another bargaining chip that allows them to obtain additional support from the farm bloc on other issues, like rebates for purchasers of electric cars, which are also a bad idea.
4) Repeal state laws that prohibit fracking. New York and California, I am looking at you. Sure, with oil prices where they are, ain’t a whole lot of fracking going on, but down the road oil prices will go back up. This is another case where liberal concern for the middle class is eclipsed by their concern for “pristine” views from the decks of their vacation homes.
5) Reduce the burden of occupational licensing. Actually, liberals aren’t necessarily the bad guys here. Even the Obama White House has put in a good word for this.
6) Stop objecting to GMO foods. GMO foods represent “progress,” something that liberals used to believe in.
7) Stop sighing over unions. As I’ve argued before, “strong” unions were really a function of a broad collection of industry-wide cartels (railroads, steel, automobiles, etc.) that “worked” thanks to a massive though temporary advantage that the U.S. in particular but also western Europe had over the rest of the world. Back in the day, the Big Three automakers charged monopoly prices, and could afford to pay monopoly wages, because nobody else in the world could make cars that compared with U.S. Fords and Chevys. That day has passed.
