A. Barton Hinkle Asks Congress To Do Less
You can't swing a dead cat by the tail these days without hitting a news story about the lack of legislation issuing from the 113th Congress. From CNN to McClatchy to NPR to the L.A. Times, the air is thick with pieces lamenting that the 113th makes "the infamous 'do-nothing Congress' of the late 1940s look downright prolific." Apparently we're all supposed to feel really bad about that. But, if you unpack the assumption behind the stories about congressional productivity, writes A. Barton Hinkle, you find a bias toward statism: the notion that government action is inherently good, and that more government action is inherently better.