The Republican Convention Will Spotlight Statism

MARINA DEL REY, CA — The Republican National Convention will spotlight one thing: the Republican Party’s real goal is not increasing individual freedom but continuing state control over our lives, said a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute.

“George W. Bush and the Republican Party, like Gore and the Democrats, don’t trust the individual to take responsibility for his life and see government’s role as a caretaker,” said Andrew Bernstein. “Bush’s Social Security plan is a good example of this distrust. Bush has proposed giving individuals ‘permission’ to partially opt out of Social Security. He doesn’t recommend eliminating this unjust, immoral, wasteful, statist program. Why? Because, according to his own position statement, Bush regards Social Security as a ‘defining American promise that must be kept.’ If this doesn’t indicate how little Bush values individual freedom, nothing does.”

Bernstein noted that there is little fundamental difference between Bush and Gore’s policies.

Bernstein compared the two presidential candidates’ positions and found:
• Both Bush and Gore want to “save” Social Security
• Both Bush and Gore want to increase Medicare coverage
• Both Bush and Gore want to increase government’s role in child health care
• Both Bush and Gore want to continue government’s role as the primary provider of education

“What these individual agendas show is the same utter contempt both men have for freedom and the individual,” said Bernstein. “The only difference between them is in the details of how the individual is to be yoked to the harness of government and how big the crumbs are, if any, they’re offering to placate the electorate.”

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