The Jacksonian Party versus Michael Bloomberg

The June 19 and 20 New York Sun carried two stories about Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg is leaving the Republican Party and becoming an independent. This has fueled speculation about his running for president. Moreover, Josh Gerstein notes that Mayor Bloomberg accuses the presidential candidates of being shallow. I'm somewhat puzzled, because Mayor Bloomberg's six years in New York City have been as shallow as a sidwalk puddle on 42nd and Vanderbilt.

The Mayor has spent the past six years kowtowing to the city's power brokers. He has busied himself with restaurant menus, west side football stadiums and a long range vision statement that mimics the failed ideas of Robert Moses. While he has harassed small business, he has catered to billionaire developers. During his tenure, city government has been bloated, New York City's taxes inflated, and the divisions between rich and poor sharp as ever.

If Mayor Bloomberg were elected president, real estate prices in Peoria would follow New York's. Private use eminent domain would mushroom. Developers could blight Peoria with tasteless super-projects. European multi-millionaires would dominate Peoria's condo market. Native Peorians would have to move to Mexico. Apartments would be too expensive.

Contrast Mayor Bloomberg's shallow ideas with those of blogger AJacksonian. In "Warnings of a Founding Generation" AJacksonian points out that Yates and Lansing were already concerned, back in 1787, that a federal government would be too powerful. This came to pass in the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the 1914 Harrison Act, and similar laws which the Progressives advocated. This also came to pass, in AJacksonian's view, from the 1913 Sixteenth Amendment, which gave Congress the power to establish an income tax. It also came to pass via Public Law 62-5, which in 1913 set the number of elected Congressmen to 435. This, in AJacksonian's view, has led to special interest pandering. AJacksonian points out that Yates and Lansing's fears came to pass because of Wilsonian progressivism. The fear of narcotics as expressed in the Harrison Act was used to expand state power. The views of founders, such as the Federal Farmer, were that taxation and expansion of government would lead to corruption. Government cannot be representative because the members of Congress are too few in number. Gerrymandering has led to the decline of democracy. "Congress...no longer acts in the interests OF the Will of the People...Today we now have Congressional Representatives who are more interested in securing funds and power than they are in actually having good government or being a fair representative of the People of the Nation."

In one blog, I learn a considerable amount from AJacksonian. In six years of Mayor Bloomberg's mayoralty, I learn only that the second-rate can become very rich.

AJacksonian has founded a Jacksonian Party, and AJacksonian seems to be the only serious candidate out there.