Freakonomics Q & A with Ron Paul

Read it here.

Q: It was mentioned you were in favor of getting rid of the Department of Education. Is this true, and if so, how do you feel this would benefit the country?

A: I do believe in eliminating the Department of Education.

First, the Constitution does not authorize the Department of Education, and the founders never envisioned the federal government dictating those education policies.

Second, it is a huge bureaucracy that squanders our money. We send billions of dollars to Washington and get back less than we sent. The money would be much better off left in states and local communities rather than being squandered in Washington.

Finally, I think that the smallest level of government possible best performs education. Teachers, parents, and local community leaders should be making decisions about exactly how our children should be taught, not Washington bureaucrats. The Department of Education has given us No Child Left Behind, massive unfunded mandates, indoctrination, and in come cases, forced medication of our children with psychotropic drugs. We should get rid of all of that and get those choices back in the hands of the people.

Visions of America

Rich old guy and wizard investor Warren Buffet urged the treasury to team up with private investors to buy troubled assets, saying the bailout alone will not be enough:

"It will cost more to solve this problem today than it did two weeks ago," said Buffett, referring to when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's first proposed that Congress help rescue Wall Street, which has seen the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and the sale of Merrill Lynch. "It's that bad. If we don't get it solved next week, I may go back to delivering papers."

Now go read Glenn Beck's report from the future:

Dear America:

Happy 300th Birthday!

It's 2076 and we've just invented the time-fax machine. (Actually, "we" didn't invent the time-fax machine, the State did -- they pretty much control everything now.)

I'm faxing this back to you in 2008 because that seems to be the year we had the best chance to reverse our course and get back to the vision laid out by our founding fathers -- a vision that didn't include the government being in the insurance business.

I don't have a lot of time (the State only gives us one 30-minute break per day) so let me give you some advice: Stop worrying so much about who runs the country and start worrying about who runs your towns, your states, and your Congress.

Bailout Dies on the Vine

Well, the wildly unpopular bailout has died in the House, with 227 no's to 206 ayes (and one non-vote). Malkin has her "live-blogging" interpretation of events, plus a list of the members voting for and against. She sounds happy and pissed-off all at once. What a shocker.

CNN reports:

Investors who had been counting on the rescue plan sent the Dow Jones industrial average down as much as 700 points while watching the measure come up short of the necessary support, before rebounding slightly. The key stock reading was down more than 500 points.

The measure needs 218 votes for passage, but it came up 13 votes short of that target, as the final vote was 228 to 205 against. About 60% of Democrats voted for the measure, but less than a third of Republicans backed it.

President Bush is "very disappointed" by the House vote, his spokesman Tony Fratto said.

I, like many others, am not sure if this is a bad thing or a good thing. I would like to see some government intervention--enough to keep the wheel's moving, but I think artificially inflating a bum-market will have the reverse effect, just leading to a greater collapse later.

As we've seen recently, the private sector is coming along buying up failed banks. If the government wants to continue to assist in this effort, and perhaps get some new mortgage-refinancing laws in the bankruptcy books, fine. But $700 billion to the New York banks, virtually no strings attached, simply to inflate this beached whale of a market?

Oy vey. Why is this the only option? Why do we need to rush such a monumental bill through Congress? Is over-reacting really wise? I'd say it's not. It rarely is.

Jim Manzi says it should pass, because no other alternative exists. The question is, do we need an alternative? Or could we just scale back this bailout?

I may ask more questions than propose answers. But then again, this has the best economic minds in the country at odds with one another. I have trouble separating the wheat from the chaff on this one...

~cross-posted at NeoConstant