Get a job!(Letters) (Letter to the editor)

• Author: Debevec, Bob

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Breezing through "Get a Job!" (November), I found myself nodding in agreement until I came across the entry by Bruce Bartlett in which he proposes yet another massive dose of Keynesian interference in the free market, via inflationary monetary policy and massive government spending. The first seven free market ideas came from individuals working outside of government, and the Keynesian brain cramp came from a former high-level government bureaucrat. Reality has proven Marx catastrophically wrong on many levels, but his identification of the strong correlation between one's environment and one's viewpoint does have some merit.

The theme of this essay collection was "free market ideas for reducing unemployment," not a more vague "ideas for reducing unemployment," or a more descriptive "free and anti-free market ideas for reducing unemployment." Was this a test to see if your readers are paying attention? By all means, include Bartlett's anti-free market idea in your magazine, and let the battle of ideas and their consequences commence. But do so in a manner that accurately labels his Keynesian remedy of massive governmental interference, which has been tried...