If an American political candidate called for eliminating entirely the federal departments of education, commerce, energy, transportation, and housing and urban development, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Social Security, and Medicare, the candidate would probably be denounced as extreme.
So give Michelle Caruso-Cabrera some credit for writing a book that stakes out and defends these positions.
"Man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts," she writes. She does write that -- but she is quoting a January 1989 speech by President Reagan. It's a reminder that ideas that ideas that initially may seem extreme can win wide support with the right politician communicating them.
As a communicator of political ideas, Ms. Caruso-Cabrera, whose grandparents fled Cuba and Communist dictator Fidel Castro in 1962, is no slouch herself. There's a lot of policy substance in this book and a lot of clear writing and clear thinking to go with it.
On health insurance, she writes, "The debate in Washington is between those who favor employer-based health insurance and those who favor government-based health insurance." They're both wrong, she says: individuals should control their own insurance.
On ObamaCare's "new 3.8 percent tax on unearned income, which includes dividends, rents, capital gains, interest, and a host of other investment incomes," she writes, "Government will tax investment. That means we will get less investment as a result. When you raise taxes on something, you get less of it. That's how higher taxes on cigarettes are justified by politicians."
There's an excellent chapter on the credit ratings agencies. This chapter alone would be worth the price of the book for the history of what she calls the "long process that led the ratings agencies to be first regulated and then legislated into profitability."
On immigration, Ms. Caruso-Cabrera is in the camp that sees free movement of people as part of the free market: "Here are five reasons why you should embrace immigration to the United States: eBay, Yahoo, Google, and Sun Microsystems. All were founded by immigrants."
She cheapens her argument by throwing in some cheap shots at Republicans. "At least the Democrats don't hate gays and immigrants," she writes. Given President Reagan's 1986 immigration "amnesty" and the strenuous effort by President George W. Bush and Senator McCain, both Republicans, to work with Senator Kennedy to forge a comprehensive immigration "reform," it seems unjustified to accuse the Republicans of being an immigrant-hating party.
Ms. Caruso-Cabrera also fails to give George W. Bush the credit I think he deserves for tax cuts. "When it came to fiscal issues Bush was nothing but a died-in-the-wool liberal," she writes. "Tax cuts are worthless, even damaging, if they aren't accompanied by cuts in spending as well." At least such tax cuts allow the individuals who earned the money to keep it. In some cases the dynamic growth effects of tax cuts are such that spending doesn't have to be cut; a tax cut at some point on the Laffer Curve may actually produce more government revenue.
Each chapter in the book ends with a variation on the phrase, "you know I'm right," a device that I thought did not work particularly well.
The author at times expresses frustration or hostility toward the religious right, without seeming to understand that for many, religion is the basis of the respect for individual human liberty and property rights that Ms. Caruso-Cabrera is such an articulate and passionate defender of.
On the whole, though, Ms. Caruso-Cabrera has written a lively and provocative book. With it, she joins Larry Kudlow (who writes a foreword to this book), Tea Party inspirator Rick Santelli, and Net Net blogger John Carney in the ranks of CNBC staffers who have been forthright about their free-market leanings. Fox Business network, meanwhile, is assembling its own staff of libertarians, including John Stossel and Judge Napolitano. So if ideas like eliminating five cabinet-level departments along with the SEC, Medicare, and Social Security seem remote from the mainstream of our present political debate, well, you never know.
Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of the book.
