thoughts on Going Rogue

I recently finished Going Rogue, Sarah Palin’s account of her life in politics to date. Although I of course have preconceptions about our beloved maverick, I tried to approach the book with an open mind. Going Rogue was definitely not written with my demographic in mind; it took some perseverance to make it through as Palin tried in vain to to clear her name in the aftermath of the Katie Couric interviews. Pages and pages of rhetoric were designed to resonate with patriotic gun nuts, the religious right, and the pro life anti-contraception folks. The largest goal of the book, however, was to promote a low regulation, low tax, small government as the only viable course of action for our country.

I can respect Palin’s goal, as the size of government is possibly the single biggest and most important ideological debate currently happening within our government. The size of our government has far reaching consequences, both domestic and international, ranging from health care and welfare to taxing and regulations. In econ 101, while discussing this issue, the textbooks always say something vague like, ‘if taxes rise above a certain or regulations are made more strict market forces will cause businesses to leave the economy’. This interpretation of the situation would support the conservative view on this issue, but it is in my opinion an incomplete interpretation. The missing argument is that there are benefits for businesses operating in a more highly regulated economy; if taxes are higher, businesses can take advantage of the additional services provided, such as a high quality road system or more government funded scientific research. I am by no means an economist, but I know enough about economics that I am sure hundreds of research papers have been written on this subject using fancy economic models and forecasting tools to reconcile these two extremes. Why aren’t these papers more present in the public discourse?

What surprised me about Palin’s account of this debate was how badly articulated it was. She just blabbed the usual, ‘taxes and regulations will make corporations go overseas’. The only example in the entire book she provided of a corporation that came into existence outside of government regulation was facebook. She stated that we should expect more such buisness in a small government economy. Don’t get me wrong, I think that facebook can be a force for good, but more often that not it is simply an advertising platform and a way to procrastinate. So, if facebook is the best example of a company arising from a lack of government involvement, then I don’t believe that small government is the end all be all solution.

While small government may be a viable option for our government, we need to be honest to ourselves about what that means. Namely, we will have a much reduced quantity and quality of public services.