My Letter to the NY Times re: Ireland and Austerity

From: patrickbarron@msn.com
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: Letter-to-the-Editor re: Ireland and Austerity
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:03:04 -0400

Re: Ireland Paying a High Price for Austerity

Dear Sirs:
Your above-the-fold article on page one of your June 29th issue takes Ireland to task for supposedly imposing unnecessary austerity on its people when the correct path is more stimulus spending as proposed by President Obama. You make the common mistake of assuming that the nation and/or government of Ireland is somehow distinct from its people and that this entity called Ireland has resources that the people of Ireland do not. Frederick Bastiat recognized this common error over a century and a half ago when he wrote "...the state can give nothing to the citizens that it has not first taken from them." Reducing the cost of government is not austerity; it is liberating resources from the predations of the state and returning them to the people where they will be employed for real economic recovery. The government of Ireland (and the U.S, for that matter) should accelerate this process and do nothing to stand in its way. It is the sure path to recovery.

Patrick Barron