"Very seldom are people willing to blame themselves for the problems they create. They always want to blame someone else: the Chinese, Republicans, Democrats. It’s a natural, normal human response, but blaming someone else does not solve the problem.
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We can blame politicians a little bit, but the bulk of the blame lies with the American people. That was kind of an epiphany for me. During the 1980s, I would occasionally have lunch with Senator Jesse Helms from North Carolina. He knew that I was highly critical of agricultural subsidies, handouts to farmers.
Something Jesse Helms told me at one of our luncheons made me realize some things I had not realized until then. He said, “Walter, I agree with you 100% that these farm subsidies ought to be eliminated.” But then he asked, “Can you tell me how I can remain the senator from North Carolina and vote against them? If I do what you say, I would be voted out of office.”
Applying his observation today, we can note that the biggest expenditures by the federal government are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and prescription drugs. Along with other entitlements, these expenditures amount to almost 60% of the federal budget. The beneficiaries of these programs vote in large numbers. Politicians who talk about cutting these programs are going to run into trouble. We have to get the American people, as much as politicians, to respect the Constitution.
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Keep in mind something that Richard Nixon said to John Ehrlichman, who warned that Milton Friedman, an economist and Nobel laureate, advised against the policy Nixon was pursuing. Nixon’s response was, “Milton Friedman is not running for reelection.” These people in Washington have commitments and responsibilities that I don’t have. I don’t owe anybody anything, so I can be perfectly honest. When you are trying to get reelected, or appointed to a high-level position, or hoping to have a high-paying job when you leave government, you just can’t say the sort of things I am free to say.
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We have to ask ourselves, “Are the American people any different than the Romans, the British, the French? Are they different from Spain or Portugal?” These were all once great empires that went down the tubes for bread and circuses, for huge spending. There is every indication that Americans will go the same way."
-- Walter Williams in the Casey Report
