The leaders of the two largest political parties in the U.S. say they don’t want a government shutdown. As that outcome becomes more and more imminent, the Libertarian Party, America’s third-largest political party, has thrown its support behind making the shutdown a permanent fixture of the federal government.
“Just think how a permanent government shutdown would allow so many Americans to regain the blessings of liberty,” Libertarian Party Executive Director Wes Benedict said in a statement.
The Libertarian Party, whose slogan is “minimum government, maximum freedom,” wants to end programs, agencies and other federal activities not authorized by the nation’s founding document. The Constitution explicitly enumerates powers to Congress and to the president, but libertarians contend that that is where federal power should stop.
“We’re not talking about eliminating the federal government … we want to cut everything else as much as we can,” he said.
Benedict made several suggestions for curbing the enormous amount of money the federal government spends — this year $3.8 trillion. He proposed dismantling the Department of Education and its “one-size-fits-all centralized mandates.” U.S. forces would be withdrawn from Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, he said, and the War on Drugs would cease.
Americans would no longer be chased down every April by the Internal Revenue Service, which he called “byzantine and oppressive.”
Best of all, Benedict said, “Americans would once again be free of unjust and unconstitutional violations of their unalienable rights,” referring to the warrantless wiretapping program, among other things, the Bush administration started and the Obama administration has continued.
“Things are going the wrong way — fast,” he said.