The Problem with Libertarian Republicans

They are all talk and no walk.

Republicans like to talk about freedom, liberty, and smaller government on the campaign trail. But once they get to Washington it's a different story. That is one reason for the development of a scorecard; we need as much ammunition as possible to reveal the lies of so called small government conservatives.

The vote last night on CAFTA is one example. I am signed up to receive e-mails from Ron Paul's Liberty Committee, which is a caucus of 24 Republicans. From time to time there has been discussion on the DFC mailing list about identifying libertarian Democrats in the House and trying to expand the caucus into a bipartisan group. After last night's vote, I'm skeptical that the majority of the members in the group actually care that much about liberty. It seems to be just another propaganda stunt. Talk is cheap, and so is affiliation with a group when you don't actually vote with the group.

Up to the CAFTA vote, even before the Senate voted for it, I got a steady supply of e-mails urging me to call my Senators and Representative and tell them to vote against it. Ron Paul, Chairman of the Caucus, spoke out against it and so did a handful of other members. When I first saw that twenty-seven Republicans defected and voted against CAFTA, I assumed that most of them were the members of the Liberty Caucus.

Surprise, I was wrong.

Of the 24 members only 8 voted against CAFTA. One, Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, didn't vote. The remaining 15 Republicans voted for CAFTA, including Jeff Flake of Arizona, Ron Paul Jr. in the eyes of many libertarian Republicans.

I wanted to do some more research. I decided to look up another piece of legislation that Ron Paul and the Liberty Committee opposed: H.R. 418, the Real ID Act. Only 8 Republicans voted against the bill: Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Ron Paul (TX), Richard Pombo (CA), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Chris Smith (NJ), Heather Wilson (NM), and Don Young (AK).

In other words only one other member of the so called Liberty Committee, Richard Pombo.

I'll give two members, Roscoe Bartlett (MD) and Tom Feeney (FL) the benefit of the doubt since they didn't vote at all. To the other members of the Committee, what the hell where you thinking?

What about the Patriot Act Reauthorization?

Ron Paul and 13 other Republicans voted against it. The 13 Republicans were: Roscoe Bartlett (MD), Rob Bishop (UT), John Duncan (TN), Timothy Johnson (IL), Ray LaHood (IL), Frank Lucas (OK), Connie Mack (FL), Donald Manzullo (IL), Robert Ney (OH), Butch Otter (ID), Tom Price (GA), Dana Rohrabacher (CA), and Don Young (AK).

A total of three Liberty Caucus members aside from Ron Paul.

What in the world is going on here?

It seems to me that most members are just using the affiliation with the Liberty Caucus to make themselves look good.

What do you think?

First of all, as a constituent of Jo Ann Davis, I can say that she is really only part of Ron Paul's mini-caucus in name. I wouldn't quantify her positions consistently along socio-economic issues because she is normally so beholden to the defense and areospace industries that populate (and dominate) the 1st district.

I have a question about your stance on CAFTA though - Isn't free trade a libertarian value, so shouldn't we be encouraging our elected representatives to encourage the passage of CAFTA? Last time I check, Adam Smith probably wouldn't embrace the tariffs or subsidies protecting and coddling uncompetitive industries and costing the tax-payers billions.

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I am a freedom-lover.

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My stance is in favor of free trade. I'm opposed to tariffs and I'm opposed to subsidies. But it seems to me that you can get rid of tariffs and trade subsidies without trade agreements. I think that most economists from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman would argue that a unilateral free trade policy, one in which we open up our borders, would benefit us regardless of what the rest of the world did.

CAFTA, as I see it, isn't free trade. It's managed trade, it's written primarily to benefit big business. I have some problems with the idea of international courts invading US sovereignty.

What eventually brought me down against the bill was this issue of test data exclusivity. In general I'm uncomfortable with the direction of intellectual property rights lasting forever. There needs to be a balance between granting them to encourage innovation and allowing them to expire so the innovation can spread. Historically we've been the biggest violators of international patents, that's one of the ways we were able to industrialize. Now we're turning around and closing off one of the ways that we become a powerful nation.

Test data exclusivity will make it more expensive for companies to put generic drugs on the market. I think that one of the biggest problems facing health care in America is cost. This is partly through drug companies making American drugs more expensive through the manipulation of trade. We can't buy drugs from Canada because we're told they won't be 'safe.' Under CAFTA other countries will be forced to honor American patents on drugs, and their drug companies will face higher costs for putting generics on the market. The most ironic situation will be when the drugs are based on genetic discoveries from the biodiversity of Central American rainforests.

I guess you are right, Smith and Friedman would want unilateral free-trade policy, but I am seeing it from a pragmatic, incrementalist point of view. The problem is that once protectionist measures are introduced into an economy, they are hard to remove, so the way I see it is that we should take whatever economic freedoms we can lay our hands on and not overly concern ourselves with the details. I think it would be fair to say that all economic regulation made by a government in real, practical terms is not concerned with overarching beliefs of non-intervention in business behavior, but with the direct impact of the regulation on specific interest groups (such as the big business you cite), so we need to focus on the policy results and not the political intentions of CAFTA.

On the intellectual property issue, I completely agree, as well as many promonent economic publications (particularly my homeboys at The Economist here and here) that patent laws are becoming problematic. The US, Europe, and most industrialized countries have been slowly extending the life and applicability of patents to the point that they have moved past rewarding creativity and research to the point of stifling growth and innovation. This is not just an isolated issue of "US corporatism" in the same way that US farm subsidies aren't just "Ruralist kickbacks" and instead are indicative of a global problem. Just think about the double guilt of the current Boeing-Airbus conflict.

Also, I do have to agree with you that international courts should not have sovereignty of US courts and citizens, but there is something to be said about facilitating international dispute arbitration, harmonizing economic behaviors across borders and using international pressure to effect free-market changes.

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I am a freedom-lover.

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I guess my problem with CAFTA is I see it moving in the direction of institutionalizing the expansion of intellectual property rights into a permanent system that in the end stifles growth and innovation. In other words, the system reduced tariffs (good) but test data exlusivity and the like seem like they'd be far more difficult to reverse than doing away with tariffs down the road.

incrementalism is fine, but these managed trade deals are no such thing, in my opinion, they are global corporate protectionism treaties. how is it incremental if you remove a few tariffs, but then add even more protections?

I guess I am not familiar with the details of the CAFTA agreement, I just assumed that since that terribly coddled industries, such as fruit and sugar cane, were opposed to it that the agreement would be a net freedom "creator." I am looking at the text of the agreement now to get a good look at this contraversial issue so that I can argue more effectively.

Also, I would encouage everyone on this site to throw in a little time to help develop a House scorecard - it should be easier to measure once we identify the same legislation used for the Senate version. The only problem is that going through 435 representatives will take quite a bit of time to get it done.

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I am a freedom-lover.

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I did an old scorecard of the House based on votes from the 108th Congress. It did take a bit of time compared to the Senate, but the harder part I had was coming up with good votes. Sometimes there are multiple ways of looking at a bill and it's hard to come up with what's the best. I've been taking notes on some of the 109th votes that I will include in a House scorecard. I'll try to post some of my ideas so far and get some responses.

Tancredo, Musgrave and Hostetler. Who are they kidding. I respect Paul for his consistency. He has been a strong voice against the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act from the get go. The rest of them, forget it.

And you do not know half of it... You should search some materials on the alcohol rehabilitation program that was in the plan, but never got to see the light... I wonder why did such a thing happen...

Granted, he is a full-fledged Libertarian, which I disagree with. (I believe there is a place for government services (and reasonable taxes to pay for them), but it shall not ban anything that doesn't hurt others.) But he is principled, and votes his conscience. And these days, I much prefer him to your typical Bushbot warmonger theocrat Republican.

The rest of these bozos have (very slight) Libertarian leanings, although probably mostly in the TAXES BAD! GOVERNMENT BAD! CORPORATIONS GOOD! sort of way.

If Paul and Feingold have the same position on an issue (any issue), than that is the correct position.

Before CAFTA, does CAFTA's managed "free" trade replace existing managed trade or no trade whatsoever? Did we have absolutely trade with Central America before CAFTA? Somehow I doubt that.