Judging Freedom - Republicans and the Growth of Government

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, November 9th, 2022. It's the day after Election Day. It's about 2.45 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. A lot of people have been asking me why in the past two months we really didn't cover the elections and I didn't even say who I was voting for. Well, my column that comes out tonight more or less explains that. I wrote the column yesterday, obviously the day before I could possibly have known what the outcome would be. The column comes out at 11.59 tonight, but I'll share some of it with you. But before the column comes out, and before I tell you why I think Republicans can be as bad for human freedom as Democrats, I want you to listen to

a friend and former colleague, Mark Thiessen. Mark and I worked together at Fox News. He's now a columnist for the Washington Post. He's a staunch Republican and supporter of former President Trump. This morning on Fox News with my friends and former colleagues, Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino, Mark gave about a 90-second dissertation of why the Republicans lost. Take a listen. We have a situation. We have the worst inflation in 40 years, worst decline in real wages in four decades, worst crime wave since the 1990s, worst border crisis in American history,

worst gas prices ever recorded, worst food prices since 1979, worst increase in shelter prices since 1984. Worst labor shortage in American history, which is fueling inflation. And Joe Biden is the least popular president in the history of presidential polling, going back to Harry Truman, tied only with Trump occasionally. And voters looked at that. They looked at Joe Biden. And then they looked at what the alternative the Republican Party was presenting them. And they said, no, thanks.

I probably spilled more ink in the Washington Post than any human being defending Donald Trump during his presidency. I'm not a never Trumper, but the election denial put people over the edge. And at some point, the voters said, we don't want the chaos. You look at yesterday, 75% of Americans said we don't like the direction of the country, but they didn't vote Republican. We need to figure out, we need to give the voters of this country who do not want the miasma spending, they don't want socialism, they don't want this left-wing direction the country's going in, a viable alternative to vote for, and we're not doing it. We need to give the voters a viable alternative to vote for, and we're not doing it. Well said, Mark, from your old pal, Judge Napolitano. In my view, Republicans are just as bad as Democrats.

They promised to stop the spending and shrink the government. They never, ever, ever do. The government is on a continuous path of growth since we started this maniacal borrowing and spending 110 years ago under Woodrow Wilson. So I was at a small dinner party on Saturday night with three of my very, very close friends. These are serious libertarians. in their teenage years, broke with the Republican Party to support Barry Goldwater, who if he were alive today, it's hard for me to believe would be a Republican. He was Mr. Republican, but by today's standards, Mr. Libertarian. And all of the people at this party were saying, we can't wait for the Republicans to win. We can't wait for Wednesday. It's going to be a red wave. And I said, I'm not so sure about that. Former Congressman and physician Ron Paul, who's the living, after my mother, the living

American I admire the most, you got that, Ma, is of the same view. Republicans, the Democrats want us to become lefty and they're open about it. The Republicans claim we're going to shrink the government and secure the borders, but they don't do it. They never do what they say they're going to do. The government just keeps growing. And for my Republican voting libertarian friends, let me remind you what the GOP has brought us in the modern era. The Federal Reserve Act, we know the damage that has done. The gold standard, we know the damage that has done. The Bank Privacy Act under Reagan, which allows the feds to look at your bank records

without even telling you. A wildly, wildly unconstitutional Patriot Act, which allows one FBI agent to authorize another FBI agent to gather records from a third-party custodian like your lawyer, your banker, your doctor, your health care provider, your telecom and internet service provider, and your utility company. The FISA court, which allows spying on less than probable cause, which the Constitution requires. The wars in Iran and Iraq, each of which cost us a trillion dollars. The Department of Education and its 4,400 bureaucrats, the Department of Homeland Security and its, are you ready for this, 240,000 federal cops, the National Security Agency and its 60,000 domestic spies, the CIA and its 21,000 American foreign spies and the foreign

wars that they fought and fight. All of these things came from Republican Congresses or Republican presidents or both. All of this increases the size of the government to the point where it's unsustainable. How much? Well, in 110 years since Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, but with Republicans controlling the Senate, borrowed $30 billion to fight World War I, a useless, fruitless war against people that had posed no threat whatsoever to the national security of the United States. That $30 billion is still on the books. Oh, it's been rolled over, meaning it's been refinanced, but it hasn't been retired. So we owe the $30 billion to different people than the ones who lent it to us.

What are the interest payments amounted to? Hold on to your seat. $15 billion. $15 billion in interest on a $30 billion loan. So only the federal government would pay a 50-5-0 percent interest rate, but that's what it does with your money. Now with the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and bonds coming due, the federal government's going to have to borrow money at a higher interest rate in order to pay interest on loans that it made 110 years ago. No bank would lend you money to pay interest on another loan without retiring the debt caused by the other loan.

But the feds, because they own a printing press called the Federal Reserve, can do it and get away with it. All of this happened under Republicans and under Democrats. How much are the Republicans and Democrats together borrowed over what they've collected from taxes in 110 years? $31 trillion. Soon the interest rate on $31 trillion, with interest rates going up and up and up, will be $1 trillion a year. Feds only collect $3 trillion a year only in taxes. One-third of it is going to go to pay the interest, not the principal on old debt. All right, what is my point? My point is that Republicans do not slow the rate of government growth. They merely redirect it. Democrats want a

grab bag of gifts. They want to give away money to everybody. Republicans want to give away money to the military industrial complex and their other favorites. Only true libertarians who understand that the government can't be fed, it must be starved, are people that we should vote for. But don't hold your breath. The Republicans and the Democrats have fixed the system. They've screwed the system. So it's nearly impossible for a third party to run and a third party to win. Does democracy guarantee freedom? It does not. It guarantees repression of liberty, confiscation of wealth, and redistribution of wealth so as to please the politicians and keep them in power. And Republicans do this as well or better than the Democrats.

Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.