America's economic liberty is in peril.

• Author: Williams, Walter
• Position: Economics

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"...Following a series of successful attacks on private property and free enterprise--beginning in the early 20th century and picking up steam during the New Deal, the Great Society, and then again recently with much fervor by the Obama Administration--the government designed by our Founders and outlined in the Constitution has all but disappeared."

ONE OF THE justifications for the massive growth of government in the 20th and now the 21st centuries, far beyond the narrow limits envisioned by the Founders of our nation, is the need to promote what the government defines as fair and just, but this begs the prior and more fundamental question: What is the legitimate role of government in a free society? To understand how America's Founders answered this question, we merely have to look at the rule book they gave us--the Constitution. Most of what they understood as legitimate powers of the Federal government are enumerated in Article l, Section 8. Congress is authorized there to do 21 things, and as much as three-quarters of what Congress taxes us and spends our money for today is nowhere to be found on that fist. To cite just a few examples, there is no constitutional authority for Congress to subsidize farms, bail out banks, or manage car companies. In this sense, I think we safely can say that the U.S. has departed from the constitutional principle of limited government that made us great and prosperous.

On the other side of the coin from limited government is individual liberty. The Founders understood private property as the bulwark of freedom for all Americans, rich and poor alike. Yet, following a series of successful attacks on private property and free enterprise--beginning in the early 20th century and picking up steam during the New Deal, the Great Society, and then again recently with much fervor by the Obama Administration--the government designed by our Founders and outlined in the Constitution has all but disappeared. Thomas Jefferson anticipated this when he said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

To see the extent of this, one simply need look at what has happened to taxes and spending. A lax, of course, represents a government claim on private property. Every tax confiscates private property that otherwise could be spent or invested freely. At the same time, every additional dollar of government spending demands another tax dollar, whether now or in the future. With this in mind, consider that the average American works from Jan. 1 until May 5 to pay the Federal, state, and local taxes...