Liberty Pen: Firing Line With William F. Buckley- Ronald Reagan (1967)

Source:Liberty Pen- Governor Ronald W. Reagan (Republican, California) on Firing Line With William F. Buckley, in 1967.

“In 1967, newly elected California governor Ronald Reagan sat down with William F. Buckley Jr to discuss states’ rights. Liberty Pen." 

From Liberty Pen 

What Bill Buckley and then Governor Ronald Reagan of California were talking about here in 1967 was the growth of the Federal Government from the Great Society and other programs and how that growth impacts the state’s.

Bill Buckley and Governor Reagan, making the argument that if government does more and taxes more, it would leave fewer resources and less things for the state’s to do. Since the Federal Government gets a piece out of every tax base in every state and each state has to operate out of available funds in their own state that the Feds also has access to. Which I believe is fair argument about the Great Society and goes to who should be running all of these social welfare programs: the Feds’s, or the state’s.

I don’t think anyone would design the New Deal and Great Society today the way they were designed back in the 1930s and 1960s. Today’s so-called Progressives (Democratic Socialists, in actuality) would have expanded those programs. Today’s Conservatives (Conservative Libertarians, really) would have decentralized those programs have the state’s be responsible for running them in their own state’s.

Today’s Liberals (or Classical Liberals, if you prefer) such as myself would have designed those programs to empower people in need to get on their own feet. Things like education, job training, even encouraging disabled people to work as much as they can, encouraging economic development in low-income communities. And I even like the idea as a Liberal Federalist myself of having the state’s run these social welfare programs. Provided that the money for those programs is used the way its intended. 

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