New at Reason

Radley Balko | November 1, 2006

Former Reason intern and The Elephant in the Room author Ryan Sager performs a post-mortem on President Bush's "ownership society."

Comments

Robert|11.1.06 @ 2:26PM|#

I read the article and then the original chapter in the book, and I'd like to pose to blog-backers here the question:

Within the USA (though not necessarily nationwide in your jurisdiction), what ideas do you have for gov't policy changes which you think would be likely to lead to long term advances in liberty by changing people's desires, but which policy changes would be easier to enact than directly enacting the advances in liberty directly? Explain how, and why.

|11.1.06 @ 3:19PM|#

I would eliminate federal funding of all education and eliminate all federal wefare programs and replace them with a yearly flat playment to every American from age 18. People would be free to save this money, use if for education or spend it on crack if they like. No more social engineering or safety nets, just a helping hand from the community every year and the freedom for people to do what they like.

|11.1.06 @ 3:39PM|#

I'm no cheerleader, but I do believe that the administration has done a lot on the practical end to promote the ostensible goals of the Ownership Society.

The true HSA (not the use it or lose it bastardization we had for a few years) and its connection to a high deductible insurance plan is a good start. It creates ownership of healthcare decisions up to about $1500 per year per person. The donkeys tried to torpedo it.

The Pension Protection Act is not a bad piece of legislation. It allows companies to offer financial advice to 401(k) participants and provides some cover for retirement plan sponsors who wanted to capitalize of default investment strategies other than "put it in cash so they can't sue us", among other things.

The approach, in general, has been to advance vehicles for saving in the hopes that the real benefits of these things defray popular demand for transfer payments. Bush and company have gooned up plenty in their tenure, but they have been consistently right and moderately successful in implementing this approach.

|11.1.06 @ 4:40PM|#

I totally called bullshit on Bush's committment to the Ownership society the moment he first mentioned it.

|11.1.06 @ 7:13PM|#

If you don't own your body, your conscience or, God help us, your personal relationships, then what's left? Tinkering with medical savings accounts or imposing test regimes on local schools hardly redeems the Republicans for Reagans' drug seizure laws or Bush's pogrom against queers. How can they be bold defenders of liberty when they would throw my ass in jail for giving a dollar to a homeless Cuban?

Giving them any credit for their tiny reforms allows them to dance around the fact that the US has a higher percentage of its population in jail than Iran or Communist China. Let them put THAT on the "Ownership Society" agenda; anything less is an insult.

|11.1.06 @ 9:51PM|#

James,

What is the proper percentage of a prison population?

|11.1.06 @ 10:32PM|#

Steven - let's start by taking away all the non-violent drug offenders and see how that changes the percentages. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I'll bet that it would make quite a difference.

|11.2.06 @ 12:28PM|#

What is the proper percentage of a prison population?

It's hard to quantify justice, but I would say our prison population should be a smaller, percentage wise, than Communist China's, Iran's, India's, Japan's, Brazil's, Mexico, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Vietnam, etc, etc, etc, until every country in the world has been listed.

|11.2.06 @ 7:05PM|#

Steven: I would think that being Number One, which we are, would be an occasion for a bit of soul-searching among supposed defenders of liberty.

Fifty-five percent of federal prisoners were sentenced on drug charges, along with over twenty percent of state prisoners. This goes to the heart of my criticism of conservatives' claims to support "self-ownership." Few of them are about to suggest anything so bold as allowing people to own their own vices.

Robert Goodman|11.3.06 @ 11:30PM|#

This goes to the heart of my criticism of conservatives' claims to support "self-ownership." Few of them are about to suggest anything so bold as allowing people to own their own vices.

OK, so back to the homework question. Suggest a gov't policy change which would be easier to get enacted than direct repeal or reduction of vice laws, which policy change would lead to reduction in public demand for anti-vice laws.