“I advocate returning to limited government, accompanied by a minimal amount of confiscatory taxation to support only essential services along with Pay as Go budgeting; means testing for all government assistance programs; abolition of all member item pork barrel spending, balanced budgets; actual surpluses and payments to reduce long term state debt”
This person is also influenced by Hayek, Friendman, Mises and Rand. You probably have in your mind an aging, balding, probably overweight man. Another Ron Paul. Guess again.
Post name ripped from an anonymous commenter…
There’s nothing libertarian about means testing benefits. It just means more questions, bureaucracy, public sector jobs, rules, intrusion and what not. If we must have benefits let’s have them be open to all on demand without the state employing people to demand a look at your bank account or your job diary or how you look after your kids.
Look, I’m a zero state guy – I don’t think we should have a welfare state at all. Not even a tiny bit. No safety net. Save, buy insurance, join a friendly society and fill the gaps with charity.
But that’s the long term plan. There are two other time frames – what do we do now, and what do we do next.
The costs of our benefit system are huge, but roughly two-thirds of the cost of the system are subsumed in the huge public sector bureaucracy that delivers the benefit system. (this is actually a middle class job “creation” program – though note that it actually destroys real jobs). Action now to save money would be best focused on destroying the huge state bureaucracy that does the rules and regulations such as means testing.