Government girth growth

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"Pundits are urging that President Bush use his upcoming State of the Union address to launch powerful new ideas." That is needed, but Mr. Bush should not allow himself to be maneuvered into proposing new federal spending programs.

Our government already does more things (almost all badly), wastes more money (more than $200 billion annually) and, in secular terms, has more influence in more ways on more people than any institution in the world.

Instead of making government bigger, President Bush should rally the American people behind two big ideas that will reshape America's future around personal liberty and free enterprise.

The first big idea is to refocus government's attention and resources on what it can and must do well.

Americans expect government will competently and unstintingly guard the nation from attack, secure the borders, protect public health, control crime, assure a stable financial system, pursue fiscal policies conducive to economic growth and, when all else fails, succor the poor and victims of disaster.

The second big idea is to restore to the people the liberties they have already lost to the ever-bigger and more intrusive government we have today.

Government has done much that is good -- but, as Thomas Jefferson foresaw and feared at the Founding, this ever-growing titan has also eroded our individual liberties. Many Americans now are more like dependent subjects than free citizens in charge of their own affairs. And if government continues on its present course, all our liberties will be at risk.

In America today, liberty is under attack by courts that make, rather than interpret, laws -- and by prosecutors who conduct inquisitions instead of trials, willfully destroying the lives and reputations of their victims, despite failure to prove any crime was committed. Like Madame Defarge, they knit all kinds of accusations, and off you go to the guillotine of public disgrace.

Property is no longer private -- not even our homes, which may now be taken from us and sold to others when it suits government's "public purpose." Religion and religious practices, especially those of Evangelical Christians, are increasingly either prohibited or regulated by government.

It is almost impossible to do anything without permission from one or more organs of government and complying with their often-conflicting dictates. Fines and penalties abound for crimes unimagined by our forebears -- often involving thought, speech or opinion more than overt action.