Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
LinkedIn
Twitter
Reddit
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Bebo
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Do you think that market forces, if left unimpeded, will help pull this country out of the current economic downturn? Or do you think that it is the government's necessary responsibility to balance the market? How does your answer impact how you vote on legislation: from health care to environment to judicial nominations?
Asked by: Elvin J. from Nashville, TN
Asked of All Republican Representatives on Nov 17th, 2009
Answer from: U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Well, I don't think it's the government's responsibility to balance the market. I don't think government can do that.I'm an Adam Smith type of an economist and as a young man, I poked through his book "Wealth of Nations" and mine I think has 1,057 pages in it. I studied it carefully forward and back and it put me to sleep a lot of nights. But, in the end, I came out of it believing that free market forces are what will save this economy and government cannot manage this, it's got to be supply and demand, it's got to be the invisible hand and we need to get government out of the way. And, I don't say that we shouldn't have taxation, we've got to be able to fund government - but, government is too intrusive, it's too big, it's too many taxes and I used to say up until this year, in fact, I said we've got to slow the growth of government.Sometime about two or three months ago, I came to the conviction no we actually have to shrink government, it won't do to just slow the growth, we've got to shrink government and let the free market bring us out of the economic decline that we are in.
Answered on Nov 23rd, 2009
