Many Americans today are understandably concerned about the state of the economy. The current recession is likely to be one of the worst in recent memory, and comes at a particularly difficult time for many Americans, 
just as many of the Baby Boom generation are planning to retire. American workers have come to expect stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and other investment opportunities to increase year after year, yet the stock market’s marginal performance over the past few years and the recent instability in the banking sector have made many wonder whether their retirement and savings accounts are safe.
Unfortunately, politicians still fail to understand both the origins of economic instability and the proper solution. Rather than getting government off people’s backs, their reflexive reaction is to get government more involved, creating new programs and bureaucracies, implementing new regulations, and spending billions more of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money. Only a sea change in congressional thinking will bring most members around to understanding that the proper way to deal with an economic crisis is to lower taxes, loosen regulation, and keep the government’s hands off the economy.
Ron Paul, a 10-term congressman from Texas, serves on the House Financial Services, International Relations, and Joint Economic Committees. He is the author of The Revolution: A Manifesto, which is currently on the New York Times’ best-seller list.
Liberty Letters Responds: Follow the link and read along. Ron Paul talks about a host of interventionist measures by the state to solve “private sector failures” which were, in fact, caused by government intervention in the first place.
He also offers a message of hope about the growing number of young people who are informed about economics thanks to the miracle of the Internet. Things can get better. I agree.
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