The good news is that proponents of limited government are fired up and fighting for freedom. Obama’s statist proposals on everything from health care to taxes have reinvigorated the leave-us-alone coalition. The bad news is that this rebirth of activism is not stopping the march to collectivism. The burden of government is much larger today than it was when Obama took office. Federal government spending is now consuming about 25 percent of GDP, but the really bad news is that the burden of federal spending is projected to rise to at least 45 percent of GDP in coming decades because of an aging population and programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. In other words, even if we stop the rest of Obama’s agenda, we are doomed because of entitlement programs to become a European-style welfare state.

Is there a way to save America from becoming another Greece? What is our best strategy to prevent the left from creating a society where a majority of adults live off the state and consistently vote to rape and pillage the productive minority? There are no sure-fire answers to these questions, but part of the solution is that we need to make it more difficult for the statists to treat private sector workers, investors, and entrepreneurs as ATM machines to finance redistribution. This is why tax competition, as explained in this video, is a powerful tool for constraining government.

Unfortunately, high-tax nations have figured out that tax competition is a threat and want to interfere with the right of low-tax jurisdictions to maintain good policy. This campaign to undermine fiscal sovereignty is usually characterized as an attack on so-called tax havens, but that is just the first step. International bureaucracies such as the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development favor “global governance” policies. Other bureaucracies, including the United Nations and European Commission, also favor one-size-fits-all global rules to benefit high-tax nations such as France and Germany.

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Greece is in big troubles.  Its economy is in bad shape, its debt is massive and its future is quite bleak. Interestingly, other European nations do not seem very eager to come to its rescue. The 27-country EU block, led by Germany and France, have promised some support package for the country but it comes with strings attached and  a lecture on how Greece must get its act together by slashing public sector wages and other spending.

Yet, instead of being grateful, Greece’s prime minister, George Papandreou, is mad as hell. First, he refuses to be treated like a lab animal (hey, I am watching to see what a country’s collapse looks like). Second, it’s not its fault. According to him,  it’s the fault of the European Commission “for failing to crack down on the previous conservative government’s “criminal record” in falsifying statistics.”

Remind me, where have I heard that the previous administration is exclusively to blame for the sad fiscal outlook of a country?

What would happen if the EU failed to extend a bailout package to Greece and if the country went bankrupt? There isn’t any doubt that, if Greece defaults it be painful and it would have very ugly consequences for the people who invested in that country. Not to mention the consequences this fall would have on Spain, Portugal and Italy.

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