Below The Beltway

Ronald Bailey voted in today’s Virginia Democratic primary, not because he’s abandoned his libertarian principles, but because he’s concluded that advocates of liberty and small government should vote in favor of divided government.

Today I’m going to do something that I have never done?I will vote in Virginia’s Democratic Party primary.

(…)

The Democrats are right about one thing?the Republicans on Capitol Hill have slithered into a comfortable culture of corruption. It’s not just the corruption of too cozy relations with lobbyists, but it is also the corruption of power wielded without restraint. The federal budget under the Bush Administration?ably helped by the big spenders in the Republican House and Senate?is hemorrhaging money faster than LBJ’s Great Society did. In addition, the Bush Administration and Congress revealed even more incompetence in their bungled response to the flooding of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina. Congress is wasting time on debating and voting on the Gay Marriage Amendment and the Flag Protection Amendment. And even worse, the Republican Congress supinely allowed the rise of an imperial presidency which authorizes wide-scale domestic spying, the torture, and indefinite detention of prisoners?policies that make the president into judge, jury, and jailer. The Bush Administration even asked the Department of Justice about the legality of halting the 2004 presidential elections in the event of a terrorist attack. Why? After all, the recent Iraqi elections were not halted because of terrorist attacks and Spain went ahead with its general election three days after the Madrid train bombing in March 2004. Finally, let’s not forget the tragic mismanagement of the war in Iraq.

Sadly, I think that Bailey’s conclusions about what America has become in 2006 are closer to reality than most of us would care to admit. To his list, I would add the Republican Party’s cynical intervention into the final days of a the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, the out of control budget, the enitire pointless and anti-freedom gaymarriage debate, and the absurd reaction of electied officials on both sides of the aisle to an entirely understandable increase in gasoline prices.

Poliitical pundits denounce divided government as a bad thing, but, as Bailey points out, reality is something different:

How would gridlock benefit the country? First, Democrats and Republicans might stymie each others spending proposals, thus reducing the budget deficit. It’s not a complete fantasy. During that blessed era of gridlock of the 1990s, total discretionary spending fell by more than 8 percent. We might also be spared disgusting exercises in political posturing on issues like gay marriage and flag-burning. Second, whichever house of Congress is controlled by the Democrats could investigate various Bush Administration assertions of executive authority. With regard to the Iraq war, I don’t think that gridlock will hurt or help much. The situation in Iraq is so badly screwed up now, it’s hard to see how a good conclusion can be reached, though I still hope for one.

We have had divided government before. From 1994 to 2001, we had a Congress controlled by Republicans and a Democratic President. And the result, quite frankly, wasn’t all that bad. The economy was booming. Government was shrinking. And, most importantly, the powers-that-be were fighting amongst themselves rather than targetting us. Sounds like a not entirely bad scenario to me.

Alex Knapp has two observations. First,

The health of the Republic is much better served by having as much power spread out as possible. Partisan politics and gridlock are an extra-Constitutional separation of powers that helps to minimize government intrusions?mostly.

Agreed, for the most part. The exception would be when the rivals for power agree to policies that increas their power at the expense of the citizenry.

Of course, as Alex notes, there are exceptions to this rule:

Unfortunately, it?s also true that sometimes gridlock backfires and you end up with monumentally stupid policies that are heralded as ?great compromises.?

I’m not sure what the solution to that problem is.

Bailey, however, made his decision, and tells us what he thinks we should do:

So do your patriotic duty?vote for gridlock this fall

For me, that would me voting for a Democrat for the first tme since I moved to Virginia in 1990. Or, maybe, I just won’t vote at all.