Cameron-Clegg: Setting Libertarian Hearts Aflutter
After setting out a promising agenda of government cuts and restoration of civil liberties ("a bonfire of unnecessary laws"!), then launching a website where Brits could make yet more suggestions on how to roll back the U.K. Nanny State, the Cameron-Clegg coalition government is moving toward actual implementation.
One hundred and seventy-seven taxpayer-funded bodies are to be abolished under Coalition plans seen by The Daily Telegraph.
A further 94 are still under threat of being scrapped, four will be privatised and 129 will be merged, according to a Cabinet Office list compiled this week, while 350 other bodies have won a reprieve.
The list discloses for the first time the extent of David Cameron's plans for the "bonfire of the quangos", designed to save the taxpayer billions of pounds. Thousands of jobs will go as part of the reforms…
However, ministers will point to the billions of pounds that are likely to be saved after the number of taxpayer-funded quangos soared under Labour to cost an estimated £65 billion a year and employ more than 100,000 people.
A senior Whitehall source said: "These reforms represent the most significant rolling back of bureaucracy and the state for decades. Our starting point has been that every quango must not only justify its existence but its reliance on public money."
This is the closest thing we libertarians get to porn this side of . . . well . . . actual porn.
Hats off to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The phrase "left and right setting aside their differences and coming together to get things done" usually forebodes a disastrous expansion of government reach and power. It's almost miraculous to see the two sides embracing—rather than shedding—their limited government tendencies upon assuming power.
Anyone know where I can get a "Daniels-Feingold 2012" bumper sticker?
