Facing down today’s problems requires resurrecting the wisdom of the Founders

Our “Imbecilic” Constitution?

by Richard A. Epstein (Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow and member of the Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force)

The bad news about our stalled economy is distressing on two fronts. The unemployment rate recently crept back up to 8.1 percent and the stock market lost all its gain for 2012. The second reason concerns the long-term soundness of our institutions. California’s fiscal crisis, for instance, is in large measure driven by its outsized pensions for retired public employees.

Today’s problems are so pervasive, some argue, that we should rethink the fundamental structure of our venerable Constitution. 

The net effect of the Fourteenth Amendment was to make government smaller.

• Throughout the 19th century, the size of the federal government was 4 percent of GDP.
• Today, the size of the federal government is a whopping 25 percent of GDP.

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