WASHINGTON, DC -- Just why the nation needs “public” -- read “government operated” -- radio and television networks is not apparent in the information age, with 500 channels on the horizon. These government operations however, do occasionally provide an educational service.

Recently it became apparent that the nation might actually experience a budget surplus for the first time in years. Mara Liasson, White House correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR), was discussing this possibility, noting that the President seemed to be reverting to his “old Democrat” instincts and talking about
expanding Medicare and child care.

On the other hand, she said, the Republicans were already “planning to spend the surplus on a tax cut.” At the time, the NPR commentator moved swiftly to the next issue, with no one willing or available to spot-weld her logic.

A budget surplus was to be “spent” on a tax cut. In other words, to allow a citizen to keep more of what she earns constitutes government spending on a par with what Mr. Clinton planned to do. The same rhetoric emerges from congressional Democrats who challenge Republicans to explain how they will “pay for” their
proposed tax cuts.

In a nation in which many citizens pay more on taxes than they do on rent and food, cutting taxes should be a matter of simple justice. Only in the fantasy world of statism can letting citizens keep more of what they earn be construed as spending.

The government has no income of its own, save what it takes from citizens in the form of taxes. Under current conditions, the government gets citizens’ money before they do, a slight of hand originally announced as an emergency war-time measure, one of many that became permanent.

Government spending is taking what people earn and giving it to others who didn’t earn it, whether in the form of day care, welfare, food stamps, agricultural subsidies to giants like Arthur Daniels Midland, or grants to Bill Moyers and NPR.

Ms. Liasson’s inadvertent NPR confession not only illustrates the mindset of the prestige press, particularly inside the Beltway. It also outlines the basic difference between liberals and conservatives.

Liberals are people of the state who believe that government holds a claim to what people earn. When someone proposes a tax cut, they construe it as spending and wonder how the government can afford it.

When someone proposes a tax increase, those on the conservative side wonder how individuals will be able to afford it on top of the confiscatory income, sales and property taxes they already pay.

As F.A. Hayek noted in The Road to Serfdom, the continued encroachment of the state affects the very soul of citizens, inclining them away from risk-taking and enterprise and toward passivity and dependency.

The nation’s idea elite, as exemplified by NPR, cannot alert citizens to these realities since it operates not as an impartial observer but government-funded advocate for the statist position. Something to think about, come pledge week.

--Steven Hayward, Senior Fellow and K. Lloyd Billingsley, Editorial Director