Lots of people fit that description, unfortunately.
My choice for today is Alexander Hamilton. Tell me someone’s view of Hamilton, and I can (usually) learn a lot about that person.
And guess what: Paul Krugman loves him.
Here’s why you shouldn’t:
In economics, Hamilton favored additional internal and external taxes, a privileged national bank, and a system of bounties for industry.
He favored the federal assumption of state debts even though, as Patrick Henry argued before the Virginia Assembly at the time, there was no constitutional authorization for it.
(By the way, Google the subject of the federal assumption of the state debts and count how many articles mention Henry’s objection. It ain’t many.)
He promoted the idea of “implied powers” in the Constitution, an idea John Marshall later codified in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), borrowing from Hamilton word for word.
He supported the Alien and Sedition Acts (which he thought John Adams wasn’t enforcing with nearly enough vigor) as well as using the military against Virginia for opposing the Sedition Act.
He took a restrictive view of the general welfare clause before ratification of the Constitution, and then, once the suckers had ratified, he explained that of course agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, etc., would all fall under the authority of Congress.
He favored reducing the states to a condition of “utter subordination.”
The architects of the New Deal could not have accomplished their ends without Hamilton’s constitutional ideas.
John Roberts’ decision in the Obamacare case was straight out of Hamilton.
But Krugman devoted a recent column to him, so Bob Murphy and I did our duty and smashed it in this week’s episode of Contra Krugman: http://www.ContraKrugman.com/33
Today’s goodies:
(1) Get a free course you can listen to on the go, on the real history of the U.S. presidents and their crimes against liberty: http://www.FreeHistoryCourse.com
(2) Envious of people with online businesses who can work from anywhere? This free video series walks you through how it’s done: http://www.tomwoods.com/ceo
Tomorrow on the Tom Woods Show: Scott Horton analyzes the Donald Trump foreign-policy speech.
That one’s a doozy.