The Greek Comedy that is playing out in Europe shows the tremendous impact one man can have on the world in his lifetime.
The fellow we owe an attaboy and backslap is Nobel Prize winner Robert Mundell, who I’d argue has done more for the cause of conservatism than maybe our own minor deity Ronald Regan. A short primer on Mundell:
- Father of Supply-side economics
- Father of the Euro
- Top adviser to Bejing on the Yuan
Imagine that. Saving us in the 80’s, Europe in 90’s, and China in this century. Preaching the same gospel wherever he goes… less currency is more.
I’m joking, lightly, about America joining the EU. I’d prefer we stop printing money, and convince them to adopt the dollar. Joking again, even less. It has been great fun watching old socialist Europe become fiscally conservative over the last eleven years as every member country must hold deficits to 3% of GDP. And for that we thank Mundell. Surely, delicious statements from across the pond, like this:
Germany cannot justify its taxpayers having to finance the lovely lives of the Greeks.
Informs our own politics here:
Just as Greece has to earn the Euros it needs, so must California earn the dollars it needs.
We must remain vigilant, but we here at home we should be heartened by two positive trends:
- States like NJ are attacking unfair public employee pensions to find balance and promote private economic growth.
- States like CA and NY, unable to gain federal bailouts, are demanding they get to keep their tax dollars at home.
A new age of Federalism is afoot. But to seize this opportunity and put America back on track, we need to change our rhetorical pitch…
Let CA keep her tax dollars. Let CA set her drug and abortion policy. Let CA negotiate poorly with her public employee unions. Let CA become Greece. Our founding fathers were not simply against Big Government, they were for state’s rights.
As fifty “United States,” and not just one “America,” we’ll be forced politically into economic austerity. Forty two states are constitutionally required to balance their budgets. But more so, when states have their autonomy, and must determine their own destiny, the shared Federal Reserve cannot inflate away one state’s accumulated wealth, to help stimulate another. No state can be too big to fail. If you are against the Fed, state’s rights is your rally cry.
The Tea Party stands for the US Constitution. And at it’s core, that document made us like the EU today; a loosely bound group of states that don’t want to live like, or pay for each other. There wasn’t supposed to be an invasive 16th Amendment that tore down the economic independence of each state. There wasn’t supposed to be a Federal Reserve hooking state governments on the crack rock of freshly printed money.
Let’s all hope Greece’s public unions eat it even more than New Jersey’s. Because if Greece falls in line to stay in the Euro club, it bodes well her people, but it also bodes well for us. It argues:
- What citizens get from other states in trade outweighs what they get from their own government.
- Entrenched public interests are less dangerous when they don’t have their own mint.