At Hillary's Service
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Politics: Sen. Hillary Clinton says she wants to establish a national academy that will train public servants. Why do re-education camps come to mind?
Related Topics: Election 2008 | Budget & Tax Policy
"I'm going to be asking a new generation to serve," Clinton said at a campaign stop in South Carolina. "I think just like our military academies, we need to give a totally all-paid education to young men and women who will serve their country in a public service position."
She's selling this as a noble ideal. But it sounds more like a taxpayer-funded government indoctrination camp. Somehow we doubt there will be many lectures in making government smaller, deregulating business, cutting taxes or increasing individual freedom.
Is there a chance that this "new generation" attending the academy will hear a single voice that isn't hailing the glories of the nanny state? Will students being groomed for public service ever hear the names Hayek, von Mises or Friedman during their studies?
Itching to add to the Myrmidons who already do her party's bidding, Clinton has offered a bill to create the United States Public Service Academy. The legislation, which could be called the Electing Democrats Forever Act, says such an institution is needed because retiring baby boomers will leave us short of public servants.
From the perspective of those who believe in capitalism and individual liberty, such a shortage would be welcome. Government at all levels is already overflowing with bureaucrats who suck up taxpayers' money and produce little, if anything, of economic value.
More often, the bureaucracy actually gets in the way of economic progress. The American prosperity machine would roll much more efficiently if it didn't have to dodge the potholes and land mines set out by an entrenched bureaucracy empowered by lawmakers ignorant of this nation's founding principles.
Our primary trouble with Clinton is that she's full of ideas that are unnecessary and harmful — such as socialized medicine and taxpayer-funded preschool. Both would strip Americans of their choices, wreck two important institutions, force the public to consume inferior services, increase the tax burden and, naturally, enlarge the size, scope and intrusiveness of the state.
And now a national service academy. America's soul needs to be restored, not hijacked by a legion of "public servants" and their political masters.
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