If one chooses the direct political option, where does one get the financing for it? Who will organize it? Who will lead it? What actions will it take? Will it try to place sympathetic candidates on the ballot for election to Congress? Will it attempt to influence sitting members of Congress by bribing them with campaign contributions or by threatening to recruit constituents to vote against them in the next election? My point is that once we select a specific means of stopping or slowing the government’s growth, an endless series of follow-up questions presents itself, as we encounter one problem after another, each of which must be solved successfully if we are to make headway. No doubt the greatest obstacle of all to any such effort is that thousands of organizations are currently working, directly or indirectly, to promote further growth of government. A 2005 article in the Washington Post placed the number of registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C., at more than 34,750 and reported that their business was booming, creating “a gold rush on K Street.” Many of them have well-equipped offices, large capable staffs, including legions of lawyers, and established connections with incumbents in Congress, regulatory agencies, and other government offices, not to mention their friends on the courts. They also have millions upon millions of dollars to pour into their efforts to win friends and influence people, including the same mass electorate that an anti-Fed or other anti-government-growth political movement presumably seeks to influence. At this point in the historical process, anti-Fed proponents face a fabulously wealthy, tightly connected, deeply entrenched conglomeration of opponents who would sooner confine you, me, and all our friends and relatives at Guantanamo for nonstop torture than give up the Fed, which has long served, and continues to serve, their interests exceedingly well. So, yes, we can try to mount a political movement to abolish the Fed, but, given what we are up against, what chance of success do we really have? One in a thousand? One in a million?If you view politics as a constantly evolving game, the current lobbyists and congressmen are the fittest contestants found so far. The winning strategy, up to this point, is a) to borrow from our children without any conception of how to pay back what we owe, and b) to favor specific interest groups, like seniors or the UAW, over the interests of the nation as a whole. These aren't new ideas; Madison and Hamilton discuss them in the Federalist Papers. The difference is that federal spending is now a behemoth.
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