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https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/10/laurence-m-vance/libertarians-and-trump/

By Laurence M. Vance

I have never been a member of the Libertarian Party. I don’t vote, so I’ve never voted for the Libertarian Party candidate in any presidential election. If I did vote, I would have probably clamped my nose in a vice and voted for Donald Trump before I would have voted for the pathetic 2016 Libertarian Party ticket of Gary Johnson and William Weld.

I don’t believe anything—no matter how good it sounds—that comes out of the mouth of any politician, and especially those who run for president. I don’t even get excited if they say “zero tariffs, zero subsidies, zero non-tariff barriers” because they will say whatever they think people want to hear if they think it will increase their chances of getting elected.

Donald Trump is no exception. I was never part of the “Libertarians for Trump” movement (but neither am I a member of the “never Trumpers”). I took every “good” thing Trump said during his presidential campaign with a truckload of salt. Now that Trump has been in office for over half of his term, I think it should be clear that Trump has been a disaster for liberty and limited government…

It is a myth that Trump has cut the number of federal employees. The federal leviathan is as big, as powerful, and as intrusive as ever. Have any federal assets been sold?…

Although Trump talked about reducing the national debt during his presidential campaign, that debt now exceeds $22 trillion and is expected to reach $23 trillion by the end of 2019. By the end of Trump’s first term, he will have added over $5 trillion to the national debt…

Trump is said to have cut federal regulations. To give credit where credit is due, I believe he has rescinded some of President Obama’s regulations. But what major federal regulations has Trump cut? No one ever lists them. The federal government still regulates every facet of American life from the amount of water that toilets are allowed to flush to the size of holes in Swiss cheese.

Trump’s tax cut “is also undoubtedly the smallest, not the biggest, individual tax cut in history,” according to David Stockman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981–1985) under President Ronald Reagan. And don’t forget that Trump’s individual tax cuts are only temporary. Trump should be praised, however, for getting the corporate tax rate permanently cut. But not, of course, for increasing refundable tax credits, a form of welfare.

Americans still live in a virtual police state. If you have any doubt, then just see the many articles on this by John Whitehead that regularly appear on this website.

The federal war on drugs continues unabated. Has the budget of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) been cut? Have any of its employees been laid off? True, Trump commuted the life sentence of drug trafficker Alice Johnson. But over 2,000 federal prisoners are serving life sentences for nonviolent drug crimes…

Trump has been absolutely horrible on foreign policy. U.S. soldiers are still dying in Afghanistan. U.S. troops still occupy hundreds of foreign military bases and are still stationed in over 150 countries. The United States has never been closer to war with Iran. Trump has brought home from North Korea the bodies of some dead U.S. soldiers, but not one living U.S. soldier has been brought home from some country where he has no business being…

Trump’s trade policies have been an absolute disaster for the economy. Trump is an ignorant protectionist and economic nationalist, through and through…

The United States may now be the world’s top oil producer, but it hasn’t resulted in something far more important—U.S. disengagement from the Middle East…

Crumbs indeed are what we are getting from Donald Trump as far as liberty and limited government are concerned. Trump may be “better” than Hillary, Obama, and Bush, but not by enough to cheer him.

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