Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
For Immediate Release
Monday, February 7, 2010
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
CF&P “Economics 101” Video Gives Four
Reasons Why Big Government is Bad Government
(Washington, D.C., Monday, February 7, 2011) In the latest “Economics 101” video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P), Blayne Bennett of Students for Liberty explains why big government doesn’t work. The video, entitled “Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government,” provides the necessary foundation for understanding the problems created by big government, and why we need to shrink the size and scope of the federal government.
As the video explains, government spending on entitlements and redistribution programs amounts to 28.4 percent of GDP, while only 8.9 percent is spent on everything else. Unlike legitimate public goods, this kind of spending is used to buy votes for politicians. This is the same path which lead to the fiscal collapse of a number of European welfare states.
Overall, the video concisely articulates four reasons to be weary of excessive government spending:
1) It crowds out private growth
2) It requires destructive levels of taxation
3) It created deficits and a massive debt
4) It violates the Constitutional prescription of limited government
Links to the video: YouTube | Dailymotion | Blip.TV
“Despite overwhelming evidence, many politicians think that the path to prosperity travels through Washington,” said CF&P Foundation President Andrew Quinlan. “Even when they cast political handouts as investment, it doesn’t change the fundamental reality that excessive government spending only leads to ruin,” he concluded.
“American politicians are repeating the mistakes of Greece,” added Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. “Unless major adjustments are made,” he warned, “our crisis will come when the baby boom generation has retired and it’s time to make good on the empty promises to fund Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”
Executive Summary
This Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains that excessive government spending undermines prosperity by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy. Moreover, the two main ways of financing government – taxes and borrowing – cause additional economic damage.
This new video is part of CF&P’s Economics 101 video series, which is designed to explain free market concepts, with particular emphasis on reaching students and young people. This is the eleventh video in the series.
The other Econ 101 videos: Keynesian Economics Is Wrong: Economic Growth Causes Consumer Spending, Not the Other Way Around; Indexing the Capital Gains Tax to Protect Taxpayers from Inflation; Repealing Obamacare and Restoring a Free Market in Healthcare; The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws; Deficits, Debts and Unfunded Liabilities; Cost of the Internal Revenue Code; Lessons Learned From Sweden; Government Monopolies; Moral Hazard; and Don’t Copy Europe’s Mistakes.
Web Page for Economics 101 Videos:
http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/econ101/econ101.shtml
CF&P Foundation has also released more than three-dozen mini-documentaries since 2007. These videos include Tax Competition Primer, VAT-Hidden Tax, Global Flat Tax Revolution, Cutting the U.S. Corporate Income Tax, Promoting Prosperity, Obama’s So-Called Stimulus, Obama’s Deferral Proposal, Case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy, President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery on Tax Havens, Six Reasons Why the Capital Gains Tax Should Be Abolished, a three part series on the Benefits of Tax Havens and another three-part series on the Laffer Curve.
Link: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/videos/videos.shtml
Web Links:
Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8k1LeSwtCw
Dailymotion
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgxenn_four-reasons-why-big-government-is-bad-government_news
Blip.TV
http://blip.tv/file/4733536
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Dan Mitchell can be reached at 202-218-4615, dmitchell@cato.org
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