Effective immediately, I'm no longer seeking the 2012 nomination of the Libertarian Party or the Boston Tea Party for President of the United States.

Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp

The "Laffer Curve" first came to public prominence back in the heyday of Reaganomics and "supply side" ideas. The concept is simple and, once you think about it, obvious (I say "once you think about it," because even though it's been around since the 14th century, it took Arthur Laffer to get people thinking about it).

What the Laffer Curve tells us is that the "optimal" tax rate t -- the rate which will produce the most revenue for government -- is less than 100%. There's a tipping point in tax rates beyond which people work less and produce less, creating less wealth to tax, than they otherwise would have. This is because they're not keeping as much of what they earn, making the earning of it less attractive. If the tax rate is x%, you get out of bed and go to work even if you have the flu; if the tax rate is x%+1, you take a sick day if you wake up with the sniffles, or maybe you pad your week of paid vacation out with a couple of unpaid days off on either side. The Laffer Curve treats that in the aggregate -- everyone's "tipping point" can be different, but there's still an overall tipping point at which increasing taxes would decrease, rather than increase, government revenues and vice versa.

One problem with the Laffer Curve as illustrated: 100% taxation would probably not produce zero government revenue. Even in the most complete state socialist system -- a system where every dime you earn goes to the government, which doles part of it back out to you in "benefits" -- some people would continue working right up to the minute the system was overthrown.

Anyway, here's the thing: Reaganites and other "conservative" politicians love the Laffer Curve because it allows them to promise tax cuts and maintenance of the welfare state. That's been the mantra since the 1980s: "We can cut taxes and still grow the federal budget -- our revenues will go up, not down, because we're on the right side of the Laffer Curve!" This is a great way to sell tax cuts (and the politicians who promise them) to those who are directly employed by government or who depend on a government check, a government contract, etc. for their livings.

BUT!

Reducing the size, scope and power of government is a worthwhile end aside from the issue of how heavy the tax burden is. Increased government revenues are a bad thing, because most of what government gets up to is mischief of one sort or another.

In terms of both legitimacy and plain common sense, the US attack on Afghanistan in 2001 should have had a very limited objective -- to decapitate al Qaeda by eliminating its leadership and command/control assets in that country. Adding a "nation-building" objective queered the plan from the very start (I've been saying this for oh, about eight years, btw).

The six weeks that the US forces spend mucking around in the lowlands -- defeating the Taliban and installing a puppet regime as a precursor to the "nation-building" exercise -- before addressing Tora Bora gave Osama bin Laden and Co. ample time to pack their trash and depart for Pakistan in an orderly manner, leaving the al Qaeda threat largely intact. While it would be a stretch to blame every subsequent al Qaeda attack (London, Madrid, Turkey, Indonesia) on the US failure to focus on mission, that failure no doubt contributed to al Qaeda's ability to plan and carry out those attacks.

To put a finer point on it, the US failed in its legitimate/common sense objective in Afghanistan right off the bat. This was not due to any deficiency in its armed forces, which achieved their assigned tactical objectives in good order, but rather to a refusal on the part of the National Command Authority, i.e. the president and his advisors, to live in the real world.

The US has now occupied Afghanistan for 8 years, and fully 7 1/2 of those years have been spent dribbling American blood into the ground and throwing American treasure at a failed pursuit of neoconservative fantasy objectives (and a very, very successful pursuit of "transfer money from American taxpayer pockets to 'defense' contractor bank accounts" objectives).

I'll be attending (and addressing) the Boston Tea Party's "meatspace gathering" in the KC area next weekend.

Other speakers include Angela Keaton (of AntiWar.Com fame), J. Neil Schulman (author of numerous books and screenplays, including the classic novel of agorist revolution, Alongside Night, libertarian activist Chris Bennett, and event organizer and former Boston Tea Party chair Jim Davidson.

The event is more than just speakers, of course -- an evening dance party is scheduled, and I suspect that general socializing will take precedence over listening to people gab from a podium. Hope to see you there -- you can RSVP at Facebook!

I'm attending the Missouri Libertarian Party's 2009 state convention this weekend in Jefferson City. Tamara and I will host a hospitality suite at the convention hotel on Saturday evening.

If you're a party member attending the convention, or if you just happen to be in the area, please drop by the suite and say hello!

Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp

At first blush, it does sound really good: After Congress has stuffed a bill full of "earmarks" -- pork projects that most of the 535 pols on Capitol Hill use to send money "back to their districts" -- the president can go through and veto the bad stuff while keeping the main body of the bill, the things that were clearly intended by it.

The up side of the idea is so obvious that it's hard not to just jump on board. But not so fast. There are real problems with it.

As best I can tell, that definition comes down to "after four years in office, I intend for the enterprise I head to only be spending half a trillion dollars more than it takes in each year, instead of a full trillion."

Thanks to handy Internet acronyms, I'm not left speechless: WTF?

I watched the president's speech last night. As always, he can be counted on to give good speech. He got in a good zinger about those CEOs and their private jets. For some reason, he decided to hold off on announcing that he'll be giving up his personal jet -- you know, the one he used last week when he flew all the way to Denver to sign a bill he could just as easily have signed on the top of Teddy Roosevelt's old desk in the Oval Office.

Make no mistake here: Barack Obama is a CEO, just like the ones he's chewing out.

We're into our second year of "stimulus plans," and they all seem to feature the same logic: If the government spends more money (provided it spends that money "right"), the economy will improve. To quote Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party's 2008 vice-presidential nominee and one of my opponents for the party's 2012 presidential nomination:

Obama believes that the way to get out of an economic toxic disaster caused by too much government spending and debt, is to spend more and go further into debt. Interesting logic.

Of course, that logic doesn't just thrive on the Democratic side of the aisle. Last year's "stimulus" -- mailing out tax "rebates" financed not by cuts in government spending but by additional government debt -- went forward with considerable Republican support.

We've got to get past the notion that government is the engine driving the economy. It isn't now, and it never has been. FDR's New Deal -- which Obama's "public works" plan echoes -- probably added at least five years or more to the Great Depression. Hopefully we're not counting on another world war to pull our fat out of this fire.