Ronald Reagan cut taxes in 1986, but Bill Clinton raised them. If unnecessary and duplicative government programs and agencies were eliminated, if we stopped fighting wars we ought not to be in, if Social Security and Medicare — the main engines of debt — were reformed, the need for higher taxes would be reduced. We could then keep, spend and invest even more of our money and possibly motivate more people who are now dependent on Washington to enjoy the fruits of liberty, a job and the dignity that goes with supporting one’s self and one’s family.

That would be real reform, but it may be easier to kick a drug or smoking habit than to wean some people from government. Too many have bought into the fiction that government can solve everything, when history has shown that it can solve very little. One does not have to look far for evidence of this.

In some U.S. states and in countries where smaller, less intrusive government has been tried, less costly government works. Think Singapore, which has an unemployment rate around 2 percent because the country has no welfare for able-bodied people, and Hungary, which has cut corporate taxes from 19 percent to 9 percent and is experiencing economic growth approaching 4 percent. Think America when the tax cuts advocated by John F. Kennedy and Reagan produced economic booms.