[Lnc-business] Question from Region Member

[Daniel Hayes]

Whitney,

How I would answer this question would probably vary depending on who my general audience was.  I don't mean telling them a different answer, just packaging the answer and highlighting different aspects of the answer that is more likely to appeal to that person.  Since this is a question from someone in our region I think that just saying "The LP wants to slash the Military by 60%." doesnt play very well.  The question regarding the rest of the government I will add on to what has now become something of a stock answer that seems to play well with people in La and should work well with most from our region.  There are all sorts of little side arguments that come up in the course of the discussion but that could make this way too confusing..so I am gonna try and stick to the basics of it.

First off Libertarians fall under a broad spectrum of just how much government we should have. The place where we all agree is that we have way too much and need to reduce its size and scope.  This answer comes from the perspective that we didnt get here overnight and won't get out of it overnight but instead by incremental steps over time.

Relative to the military, Libertarians believe that force is warranted to defend yourself.  We do not believe in initiating force.  Why are our soldiers defending the poppy fields of Afghanistan and not the borders of the United States?  Without cutting one single serviceman or piece of equipment, we need to take them home from all over the world.  We need to open shuttered military bases back up.  This will save billions and billions of dollars a year.  At the same time the money that was being spent overseas by these servicemen and to keep their bases open would then instead be injected back into the economy here in the United States.  The greatest nation states in history with the most powerful armies all failed when their far flung empires drained their treasury and/or their best defenders were away when the homeland was attacked.  Broke countries field no armies. 

Not having servicemen deployed in countless police actions would also result in a lot less servicemen coming home with grievous injuries, that it is the obligation of the government to care for. This would help to reduce costs and strain on the health care system and decrease the demand for services which helps to decrease the price. 
Then consider the human cost, servicemen kept at home to defend their country from attack would no longer be separated for years at a time from their families and/or coming home physically and psychologically scarred.  Spouses would be together, children would have their parents to raise them.  All of these things would have large impacts on the economy and beyond.

As Benjamin Franklin said, "A penny saved is a penny earned".  That money saved by keeping our troops at home could then be used for other things.  This helps to fund the federal government without government doing something that government almost never does, cut taxes.

There are all sorts of side arguments that people go off on during this discussion.
Isloationism means you dont have diplomatic relations.  That means embassies not military bases.  Under that other military base definition almost every country in the world is isolationist because they don't have bases in other foreign countries. Then where are the military bases in the United States for other countries?

The ability to project force: U.S. Navy..each U.S. carrier group is capable of defeating all but the most powerful of nations. We can project force to defend ourselves almost anywhere in a matter of days without having a base in another country.


As far as funding things, get out the red pen...  The overcriminalization of everything costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year nationally and otherwise.  The most obvious is the drug war which has direct costs over 100 billion annually.  The indirect cost of lost productivity in the economy of so many people has a greater and farther reaching cost.

Cut the direct foreign aid. That saves about $50 billion/ year. You can't buy friends. Friendship is earned through healthy relations through trade.

On the IRS, I think that there is about a 12 billion dollar annual cost to run the IRS. Then throw in the 6.1 billion hours needed annually to comply with our complex tax code, that comes out to about 400 billion dollars.

Anywho, its a incredibly complex question and I have to go work...but there are a few ideas that I have used and tested in da field... Just remember, Libertarians don't have a magic wand. We didnt get here overnight, we won't wave a wand and make government disappear.  It's going to take take long concerted effort over decades to trim the government back to a level that any self identifying libertarian is remotely comfortable with.

Daniel Hayes
LNC At Large Member
On Aug 05, 2016, at 10:32 AM, Whitney Bilyeu <whitneycb76 at gmail.com> wrote:

"What is the LP plan for government revenue for use in paying military and other government employees?"

I replied, but I would love to provide this gentleman a potentially more articulate response about this matter, if possible.

Anyone?

To be clear, the Platform calls for abolishing the IRS, but only the reduction in military spending and other government agencies.

Whitney Bilyeu
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