“I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election,” President Donald Trump announced (via tweet) on October 6. “[I]mmediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill …”

Trump reversed himself three days later, but House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) isn’t having any of it. On October 10, she described the administration’s current “COVID-19 relief” proposal as “one step forward, two steps back.”

Both major political parties would have you believe that the devil is in the details — that they’re both fighting hard for particular priorities and just can’t come to a meeting of the minds.

In reality, this is all about next month’s elections, which will decide control of the White House for the next four years, and possibly of both houses of Congress for the next two.

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do,” President Ronald Reagan once said, “if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and (in the background) Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden care a great deal about who gets the credit.

Donald Trump would love nothing better than to put a big fat “stimulus” check, signed “Donald J. Trump,” in your mailbox before you cast your vote. Nancy Pelosi’s signature wouldn’t accompany his.

Pelosi’s more expansive proposal focuses more on extending “enhanced” unemployment benefits, as well as new funding for Democratic Party constituencies in public education and local government — “relief” that might get her party at least a little credit.

Neither side is likely to give an inch until after November 3. Maybe not until after January 20 of next year if the White House changes hands.

I can’t say I’m unhappy about that. Politicians throwing “stimulus” money at Americans is a poor substitute for those same politicians knocking off their COVID-19 panic-mongering, getting their boots off our necks, and letting us get back to normal life.

On the other hand, they’re not likely to do the latter any time soon, any more than they can agree on doing the former at the moment.

Americans always find ourselves prisoner to partisan political considerations, but never more cruelly or more obviously than as a major election nears. And yet the majority of those who bother to vote continue to vote for these opportunistic, self-serving jailers.

The beatings will continue until morale improves — or until we pull a mass jailbreak and start voting Libertarian.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On October 1, Jimmy Carter became the first-ever US president to live past 95 years. He enjoyed a celebratory cavalcade in Plains, Georgia.  Yet his Democratic party has ignored one of his most enduring legacies.

Signing the Airline Deregulation Act, the Motor Carrier Regulatory Reform and Modernization Act, and the Staggers Rail Act into law, Carter’s pen struck longstanding regulatory restrictions on commerce via sky, road, and railway. More goods from more sellers could now be bought — and delivered — in more ways.

The regulatory structures left in place by such partial measures have faced no real challenge from subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations. Partisans on both sides would soon mistake deregulation for a right-wing project, originating with rock-ribbed conservative Ronald Reagan and continued by centrist Bill Clinton, despite neither putting into practice their rhetorical echoes of Carter.

The view of Carter’s economic program from farther left was summed up by Howard Zinn: That it preserved “the fundamental facts of maldistribution of wealth in America.” Doug Henwood of Left Business Observer puzzles that Carter’s deregulation was supported by “an odd coalition of right-wingers, mainstream economists, liberals, and consumer advocates.”

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader urged Carter to allow “wide-open price competition in the marketplace.” This, he argued, would undermine corporate “federal and state welfare supports” which “assure price-setting cartels.”  Gabriel Kolko’s historical study Railroads and Regulation supports that case, showing how industry titans not only supported federal regulation but “enthusiastically worked for its extension.”

Given how much “the motives and consequences of regulation have been misunderstood,” Kolko was onto something in inferring that “the conventional interpretation … warrants a radical reappraisal.”

Carter has called Joe Biden his “first and most effective supporter in the Senate.” The current Democratic nominee should be reminded to follow Carter’s deregulatory path.

New Yorker Joel Schlosberg is a contributing editor at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, Queens [New York] Ledger, 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, Forest Hills/Rego Park [New York] Times, 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, The Glendale [New York] Register, 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, Leader/Observer [New York City], 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, The Long Island City/Astoria [New York] Journal, 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, Queens [New York] Examiner, 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, Greenpoint [New York] Star, 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?” by Joel Schlosberg, Brooklyn [New York] Downtown Star, 10/14/20
• “Jimmy Carter Freed Markets. Will Joe Biden?,” by Joel Schlosberg, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/20/20

With the 2020 presidential election less than a month away, my TV screen and snail and email boxes are awash in, and my phone is ringing off the hook with, reminders of how very, very important it is that I vote. Pleas from the candidates and their proxies, of course, but also the generic “no matter who you vote for, vote.”

How important is it, really, that you or I mark and cast a ballot?

According to the political operatives knocking on my door (sometimes literally), my potential failure to vote — or my decision to vote for the “wrong” candidate — constitutes an existential threat to motherhood, apple pie, and America.

Could my vote (which, by the way, I’ve already cast by mail for the Libertarian Party’s Jo Jorgensen) affect the outcome of next month’s election?

It seems unlikely. The last time a single vote decided a statewide election was in 1839 when Marcus Morton became governor of Massachusetts with 51,034 votes out of a total 102,066 ballots cast.

I probably have a better chance of winning next week’s Mega Millions jackpot than of casting the vote that decides which candidate’s slate of electors will represent Florida in choosing the next president. And as a Libertarian, the chance of my vote putting my preferred candidate over the top, in Florida or nationally, is even slimmer.

So does it really matter whether I vote or not? Absent some earth-shaking development that I can neither predict nor bring about by force of will, more than nine of every 10 voters will choose “business as usual” by casting their ballots for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. They’ll vote against freedom and for an ever more authoritarian state. And yes, they’ll almost certainly win.

Why bother? Because it matters to ME, that’s why. I have an opinion, voting is a way of expressing that opinion, and the vote total my preferred candidate gets, however small, will remain a matter of public record long after you’ve forgotten this column.

If one or two of a hundred voters choose freedom, they — WE — light a flame of hope in the deep dark night of fear and loathing that is 21st century American politics. A tiny, guttering flame, perhaps, but a flame I’d not want to see go out entirely.

Your vote is your voice. I won’t join my voice to the voices of the party of hate or the party of fear. Will you?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY