"How did America reach the point where aspiring entrepreneurs…must approach government on bended knee?"
In his latest Washington Post column, George Will highlights an important economic liberty case from Washington state, where two brothers are seeking the right to compete with a government-granted ferry monopoly on a popular lake in the Cascade Mountains:
Washington state's creation of the ferry monopoly is what governments have increasingly done since courts misconstrued the Constitution in a way that licenses governments to dispense particular economic favors by restricting general economic liberty. It is now routine for government to have transactions with rent-seekers — private interests who want public power used to confer advantages on them, or disadvantages on competitors.
This case from a remote region of Washington state explains much about a Washington 2,200 miles away. Start with a misbegotten constitutional principle that denigrates economic liberty as less than fundamental, and thus licenses government to ration such liberty.