Ed Crane, founder and president of the Cato Institute, spoke at a Yankee Institute for Public Policy luncheon on April 14. He took a number of questions after his address.
“The energy and hope for the Republican Party is the Tea Party,” Crane said. “The freshman Congressmen are very tea-party oriented.”
Crane said he told Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the budget committee, to challenge Ohio Republican John Boehner for Speaker of the House.
According to Crane, Boehner is “old school.” “He’s not part of the solution. He’s part of the problem.”
“Too many professional politicians don’t care. They just want their power,” Crane said. “That’s why I’m a big term-limits fan.”
Crane said the General Welfare clause and the Commerce clause are commonly used to expand the power of the federal government.
“Except that both those clauses were intended to be constraints on the federal government.”
“The General Welfare clause said that you have these enumerated powers, it’s true, they’re limited as Madison said, but you can only use them for the general welfare not for what they call factions and what we call special interests.”
Crane said the framers intended the Commerce clause to correct one of the main problems with the Articles of Confederation: protectionism among the states.
“It was meant to be a free-trade clause, not one that said the federal government can do anything it wants.”
“I think one of the ironic things is the federal government passed a law mandating that local school districts have a Constitution Day,” Crane said. “You know, blatantly unconstitutional.”
Guests asked several questions about monetary policy.
Crane said Cato has hosted a variety of scholars who suggest alternatives to the Federal Reserve, including replacing it with a monetary rule, the gold standard or a market basket of commodities,
“Some way to control money – because it’s horrible what it does to people’s savings, it distorts capital flows,” he said. “I think the time is ripe.”
“Who knew the Fed was going to create $2 trillion dollars out of thin air? They just did it, which is scary,” Crane said.
One person asked about saving money by closing overseas military bases.
“Yeah, I think Germany’s OK now,” Crane said.
He said the U.S. should also make a deal with China – if they allow North Korea to collapse, U.S. will withdraw its troops from the peninsula.
The Yankee Institute will host former Gov. John Rowland on May 25.