Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Ted Cruz' political platform

In-depth analysis at ChicaghoBoyz:
Most impressive to me is his Five for Freedom plan. This from the first section:
Abolish the IRS, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. A Cruz Administration will appoint heads of each of those agencies whose sole charge will be to wind them down and determine whether any programs need to be preserved.
  1. Internal Revenue Services – end the political targeting, simplify the tax code, and abolish the IRS as we know it.
  2. Department of Education – return education to those who know our students best: parents, teachers, local communities, and states. And block-grant education funding to the states.
There are more.  The analysis and the comments are thought provoking.  And it made me think that I've been looking at this election wrong.

The problem is not breaking the political establishments.  The problem is the permanent governing class.  I wrote about that a couple years back, linking to some very interesting thinking at Isegoria:
The nature of the state
    • The state is established by citizens to serve their needs. Its actions are generally righteous.
    • The state is just another giant corporation. Its actions generally advance its own interests. Sometimes these interests coincide with ours, sometimes they don’t.
The power structure of the West
    • Power in the West is held by the people, who have to guard it closely against corrupt politicians and corporations.
    • Power in the West is held by the civil service, that is, the permanent employees of the state. In any struggle between the civil service and politicians or corporations, the civil service wins.
...

This is the first truly revolutionary philosophy that we've seen in a hundred years, and it is just now emergent. Whether you accept or reject its arguments, this is the intellectual structure that will battle Progressivism.
This may be a fool's errand, but Cruz' target selection is dead on.  The question is whether he can do it.  The key is whether we can get people to sign up for cabinet positions in his administration when all he wants to have them do is spin down the agency.  The press will do their best to ruin the reputation of anyone who does this.  I'd love to hear someone ask him how he can hire the right people to do this.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would sign up for that. I have decades of watching the DoD mismanage and fatten it's own bloated carcass in the name of national defense. I carry a list of 13 huge things to change that would result in a better defense structure from a much smaller organization. I would gladly accept "never working in this town again" as the price I pay to fix something that desperately needs fixing.

ASM826 said...

It would have to be like WWII. We would need "Dollar a Year" men to take these bureaucracies on.

R.K. Brumbelow said...

I find it moderately humorous that Trump is beating the Cruz is a liar drum constantly. Trump knows that honesty is one of the things that Cruz supporters are actually looking for and so it polls well for a Trump despite it being fallacious.

juvat said...

Pick me. I have no desire to be a career bureaucrat, loathe the DC mentality, and would enjoy showing my fellow bureaucrats what unemployment looks like. At the end of 4 years, I would gladly be the last person in the building, lock the doors, throw away the key and leave the region forever.

waepnedmann said...

In all of recorded history there has been only one Cincinnatus.
Power does corrupt..

matism said...

Cruz supported Roberts. THAT is enough to damn him for me.

Jehu said...

Perhaps one could use RICO against weaponized agencies (e.g., the IRS). Put everyone in the agency on trial and offer get out of jail free cards for anyone that resigns/quits without a fight. Also identify a remnant that you'll not lay charges against---perhaps 10% of the employees, that you'll rebuild a much smaller agency around when the function isn't something you can just do away with (e.g., the IRS) or transfer to form the cadre of other agencies when you plan to do away with it entirely.

Arthur said...

"The question is whether [Cruz] can do it...."

Actually the question is whether he - like every other politician or wannabe - is a lying sack of crap.

I keep beating this drum, but...why on earth would you trust a single word out of any of these corrupt a-holes?

Will said...

THIS!!! ^^^^^