BrianGarst.com

I recently sent the following letter to the Washington Post:

Dear Editor,

Harold Meyerson says it is now up to liberalism to “[build] a more sustainable economy from the wreckage of the old,” while declaring the conservative god of “unregulated capitalism” to be dead (“Gods That Failed,” October 15). He’s a bit late for the funeral. Free-markets died almost a century ago when FDR, ignoring the Constitution, expanded government power over economic activity. Today, there’s an alphabet soup of federal agencies employing over 12,000 bureaucrats to regulate the supposedly unregulated financial sector.

Every time there is a new problem, a chorus of talking heads immediately blames it on a lack of regulation and demands action. Legislators who want to look like they are “doing something” get busy passing laws and hiring yet more regulators. It’s these knee-jerk government interventions to the challenges of the past that have fueled the problems of today. Let’s not create more problems in the future by making the same mistake now.

Sincerely,
Brian Garst

letter to the editor