Think about the difference between how your local gas station and congressman respond to a spike in oil prices. One has the price placard outside changed to reflect the reality of the market within hours. The other sends out a press release, tries to organize a hearing, and at the end of amount accomplishes nothing. Meanwhile, the gas station has already made at least thirty additional adjustments to the realities of the market while your politico fails to get anything more than easy media.

Markets respond not to political pressures channeled through various committees, subcommittees, lobbies, and special interests but to the immediacies and exigencies of the economy - in other words, what's happening now.

Instead of doing more badly, government should focus on doing less well.

Like some great swelling river, the powers of the federal government have today breached their constitutional levees and spilled into countless areas of life never anticipated by the founders.

The government doesn't create wealth of its own; it can only take it from some and distribute it to others or dictate particular public uses of private resources.

The more government does, the greater chance that its efforts will be tilted toward a particular group's good, instead of the common good.

Political changes and reforms do not usually favor the general populace. They benefit those who are positioned to best organize and advocate for their policies.