The Club for Growth (of government)

The Club For Growth just recently released its whitepaper on Ron Paul. But it appears that the CfG is, to put it nicely, shortsighted. Here's a quote that pretty much sums up their mistake:

"Unfortunately, his stubborn idealism often takes Ron Paul further away from achieving the limited-government, pro-growth philosophy he advocates. This is certainly the case with school choice, free trade, tort reform, and entitlement reform, in which he votes against vital free trade agreements, competitive school choice initiatives, and tort reform proposals."

What the CfG fails to understand is that even though measures which may seem to be a step in the right direction in the short-term are actually steps in the wrong direction when viewed long-range. Let's take their example of federally-funded school choice, for instance. While this may pragmatically appear to be a step toward more choice and more freedom for families to choose where to send their children, the reality is that it is at least as large a step backward by handing more power into the hands of the federal government. Consider the fact that federal funds always have strings attached to them, and that any recipient of federal funds will eventually have to comply with federal stipulations. Then what happens is that the path of least resistence is to simply comply with federal dictates rather that forego the federal subsidies or exemptions. A good example of this sort of tactic is 501(c)(3) status being used as a tool to gag speech in churches. The government offers a perk, the people fall for it, and thus the federal government acquires more control.

This is precisely how clever manipulators of the system coax us toward a more fascistic system with the illusory promise of "free markets". Were we to follow the CfG's advice, the federal government would slowly (or perhaps quite rapidly) expand its power both economically and politically. It is precisely the sort of principled stand taken by Ron Paul that guards against this trickery and lights the path to true free market solutions. The fact that the rest of Washington is not onboard is an indictment against Washington, not Ron Paul.