Stephen Moore - Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy—And Our Freedom

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-63758-384-5

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-63758-385-2

Govzilla:

How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our EconomyAnd Our Freedom

2021 by Stephen Moore

All Rights Reserved

Interior Design by Yoni Limor

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

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A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything youve got.

Ronald Reagan

by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky

September 2, 2021

W hen Steve Moore asked me to write the foreword for Govzilla , I told him as long as the audience is left with no sympathy for big government, debt, and taxes. Steve assured me that not only is the book in defense of limited, constitutional government, but also the book even trashes the whole concept of a progressive income tax. I saidcount me in.

When we were a constitutional republic, the worry of our government transforming into Govzilla was not so paramount. But now, with the courts enforcing very few constitutional restraints on big government, the nanny-state is invading every sphere of our personal lives.

Most voters are unaware of Thomas Paines admonition that government is a necessary evil. Necessary to avoid the chaos of violence that no government might allow and evil because we must give up some of our liberty to have government.

We give up that liberty in many forms but primarily in the form of taxes. If we allow the government to take 50 percent of our earnings, we are, in essence only 50 percent free. The argument for preserving liberty is easier to make when everyone works, as they have a self-interest in their liberty to keep most of what they earn.

The problem comes when the nonworking class becomes larger and larger and becomes a majority. When constitutional restraints fall away and majority rule takes over, liberty becomes subservient to the whims of those who live off of government largesse. Without the self-interest of preserving the fruits of their earnings, the majority increasingly votes for more free stuff.

This situation translates into deficits and debt until the weight of the debt becomes an anchor dragging us all into the malaise of a stagnant economy and interest payments that consume more and more of tax revenue.

The greater the debt becomes, the greater our taxes become, the less free we become.

Which party is to blame? Republicans?well, yes. Democrats?well, yes. In fact, theres enough blame to go around. Most Republicans in Congress vote for unlimited military spending and most Democrats in Congress vote for unlimited social welfare spending. The unholy alliance produces compromise and all categories of spending go up each year.

Compounding the problem is that the Demopublican support for spending is then dwarfed by the entitlement spending that is growing even more rapidly than the discretionary budget that Congress votes on each year.

The budget voted on by Congress is about one third of total spending. Two thirds of spending is categorized as entitlement or mandatory spending and is never voted on. Mandatory spending includes things like Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps. These programs are never reformed. In fact, they are never voted on at all.

I came face to face with this problem shortly after I arrived in the Senate. I discovered that Social Security was $7 trillion in debt. I proposed to make Social Security sound for seventy-five years by gradually raising the age of retirement to seventy over twenty years and instituting means testing for how much each individual received, those with higher incomes would receive a greater hair-cut.

I got only three co-sponsors, all Republicans. The big-government Republicans who perpetually harangued that they would not vote to cut on-budget spending because the real problem was entitlement spending proved to be disingenuous (liars is the more accurate but less politically correct word). Not one of these Republicans signed on to help cut or event restrain entitlement spending.

Steve Moore presents the dilemma we face and the immanency of the problem. We must act now to save our Republic or forever rue the day complacency caused us to sit at home complaining but not acting.

Every day in the Senate I put forward my best effort to rein in big government. But I need help. Not one Democrat even pretends to care about the debt, except when putting forward false arguments on tax cuts creating deficits. (Steve Moore does a great job debunking this shibboleth).

But its not just that Congress needs more Republicans. I volunteered as a teenage intern in my dads congressional office. I remember going to committee hearings and asking him why the high-ranking members of each committee on both sides of the aisles voted almost identically for big government? He explained that really the mainstream of both parties shared the belief that government is the solution to most problems.

As an intern, I saw firsthand that Republicans never countered the Democrats deficit-laden budget with a balanced budget. Since Ive been in the Senate, Ive faithfully put forward a budget that balances in five years. Why five years? Because thats the rule put forward by the constitutional amendment that every Republican in Congress has voted for. Shouldnt we put forward budgets that actually align with the Balanced Budget Amendment we profess to support?

About eight years ago, a freeze in current spending would have balanced the budget in five years. Then a couple of years later, a 1 percent cut in spending each year for five years would have brought us into balance. But it became harder and harder to balance. Big-government Republicans in league with Democrats kept blowing through spending caps until this year it now takes a 5 percent cut annually for five years to bring about balance.

The good news is my nickel plan got more votes this year than ever beforetwenty-seven. The bad news is that twenty-three big-government Republicans voted against balancing the budget in five years.

Steve Moores Govzilla zeroes in on the exponential growth of government and the urgency of rising up to defend limited, constitutional government. My hope is that this book will inform you, anger you, and ultimately prompt you to help us take back the republic.

on Sources and Budget Estimates

U nless otherwise noted, all of the historical budget and tax statistics in this book come from the Historical Tables of the United States Budget, published by the Office of Management and Budget or the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Unless otherwise indicated, all of the historical statistics are adjusted for inflation and presented in 2020 real dollars.

The starting point for our projections for future outlays, taxes, debt, and deficits are the Congressional Budget Office long-term fiscal forecast through the year 2051. Those numbers already are daunting because of entitlement spending and the demographic reality of some 75 million baby boomers in retirement collecting government payments via Social Security and Medicare. In other words, even without the Biden debt explosion, America faces a budget train wreck.