Vin Suprynowicz

I wrote recently that under the Second and 14th Amendments, the average citizen must be “allowed” to own, without government license or permission or taxation (the tax having been specifically designed to discourage possession, in the case of the $200 “machine gun tax,” enacted in 1933 when that sum was equivalent to 6,000 to 13,000 of today’s dollars) “every terrible instrument of the soldier.”

One correspondent insists that’s absurd, since “That would mean just anyone would be allowed to own machine guns, mortars, and biological weapons!”

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America has borrowed too much; her government has grown too large.

The only hope of an extended economic recovery is to reduce not only the size, intrusiveness, and cost of government, but also to stop the way government borrowing is eating up all available credit, leaving too little for the growth of private, non-subsidized business and the jobs its creates.

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This year’s insurgent class of freshmen Republican congressfolk were elected in large measure based on their pledge to reduce federal spending by $100 billion.

The question — leaving aside for the moment whether a trim of that modest proportion would sufficiently rein in the tax-and-regulatory state to produce a substantial economic rebound — is whether voters who embraced that pledge really mean it and will stand behind lawmakers who really try.

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As we grow older, hearing an old familiar tune can make us wax nostalgic.

The other day, I heard this one again:

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SPECIAL TO THE SHOTGUN NEWS

Back on Nov. 15, “Reason” magazine headlined their story, by senior editor Radley Balko, “New Jersey man gets seven years for being a responsible gun owner.”

Sounds a bit far-fetched — unless you’ve ever had dealings with the anti-gun madness in some of our coastal states, where illegal alien gang members carry with impunity, while honest citizens trying to keep up with a dizzying rat’s nest of laws find “zero tolerance.”

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House Republicans, anxious to make good on last fall’s campaign promises, are determined to promote early passage of a law ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to refrain from enacting costly and job-destroying regulations aimed at limited carbon dioxide emissions, supposedly to halt “man-made global warming.”

Since the EPA claims to act under a “Clean Air Act” enacted by Congress in the first place, there’s no doubt lawmakers have the power to do that.

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Last year, Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller stopped by our office here in the Stephens Media bunker, escorting a guy from the Census Bureau. Their joint message: Tell people to fill out their census forms, since the count will be used to distribute lots of goodies from Washington.

I politely told our guests I didn’t think the “goodie bag” argument was their strongest. The Constitution mandates the decennial count, for allocation of congressional seats and of direct taxes (last assessed against the states to pay off the Civil War debt, as I recall, under never-repealed language that means the personal income tax, not being capitated, cannot be a direct tax, but must instead be collected as an indirect excise, just for the record.)

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America’s system of compulsory public schools is based on the premise that “professional educators” (people with degrees not in science or literature but in “education”) can do a better job schooling the nation’s children than if that job were left up to their parents, as it was before the Civil War, when Alexis de Tocqueville found this the most literate nation on earth.

Then, ironically, asked to explain why the public schools often do such a poor job despite their massive funding, apologists often blame the very parents from whom the responsibility for schooling has been taken away.

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In my Jan. 9 column — “I like to pay taxes; with them I buy civilization” — I wrote: “What’s that? What about those unemployed through no fault of their own? Get rid of all the government interventions in the labor market, including payroll taxes, and jobs would sprout like fungi. Of course, they might not all be government-approved jobs.”

A loyal reader objects: “Vin Suprynowicz’s words are a code word for abolishing laws and regulations governing worker safety, pay, child labor, benefits, etc. ‘Of course they might not be government approved jobs,’ he boasts. What kind of jobs would they be? Jobs that pay $5 an hour or less? Unsafe jobs since he no doubt would abolish OSHA? Jobs where you would be forced to work a 16-hour day without overtime? Of course, he would abolish overtime and minimum wages. Jobs without vacation? Twelve-year-olds no doubt could do some jobs because the prohibition of child labor is under Suprynowicz’s way of thinking government interference in the market place.

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As part of the GOP’s campaign “Pledge to America” last fall, the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives promised to roll back federal spending to 2008 levels, a move which could involve cutting as much as $84 billion from nine appropriations bills — cuts that would average 18 percent below President Obama’s budget recommendations for 2011.

And they have the votes to do it.

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