Government spending and job creation
In a July 2011 episode, Bob Zadek framed fiscal policy through the relationship between government policy and jobs, noting that unemployment remained above 9% and that there was pressure on government to “create jobs.” Zadek argued that government could create jobs only wastefully — by cutting the minimum wage in half or by hiring 10,000 men to dig a hole and another 10,000 to fill it in — and that what government can do is create an environment where businesses create jobs. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
Guest Don Boudreaux, identified as a professor of economics at George Mason University, called it a myth that government spending and government monetary policy create jobs. He said entrepreneurs create jobs, and that they create jobs the freer they are, and that the jobs are worth more and wages are worth more the freer the economy. Boudreaux said that when government reduces regulation, calling that job creation is like saying government has stopped destroying jobs, and that hiring people to dig holes or to fight in a war employs them but does not employ them to produce anything consumers can purchase. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
The debt ceiling and credit markets
In the same episode, Boudreaux criticized the framing of the debt ceiling debate, saying that if government did not raise the ceiling and instead prioritized payments and paid off its creditors, credit markets would welcome it as a sign that Uncle Sam was serious about keeping his fiscal house in order. He said the political class and the mainstream media had transformed raising the ceiling into an indication of responsibility. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
Zadek offered a business analogy: a businessperson who tells a banker he has cash flow problems, is cutting back on country club dues and superfluous marketing, and closing unprofitable divisions would be seen as on top of his game, whereas one who says he is clueless, is not cutting back, and needs more money would be closed down. Boudreaux agreed and said sticking to the commitment to keep debt under control would signal seriousness to credit markets. Zadek added that if the debt ceiling were not raised there would not be a default but a strategic, politically motivated non-payment, and that politics cannot overrule sound fiscal policy. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
The S&P downgrade and entitlements
An August 2011 episode turned to the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the United States’ credit rating. The episode description states that Bob Zadek and Peter Suderman discussed the downgrade, analyzing both short-term political gridlock and long-term fiscal challenges posed by entitlement spending, and explored historical precedents such as Canada’s recovery from a downgrade while debating tax hikes on the wealthy versus structural spending cuts. Is the US the Next Enron? (2011)
Zadek opened the episode by saying the topic was the Standard & Poor’s debt downgrade, asking whether Standard & Poor’s was correct and whether it had the right to do what it did, noting that the Senate Banking Committee was asking that question. He said the discussion was loaded with code words and that he had spent the weekend breaking the code. Suderman is identified as an associate editor of Reason magazine who writes regularly on healthcare, tech policy, and pop culture. Is the US the Next Enron? (2011)
Fiscal policy as a measure of freedom
In a 2022 episode, Zadek introduced fiscal policy as the first subdivision of William Ruger’s book, asking why a reader should care about a state’s fiscal policy and its effect upon freedom. Ruger said fiscal policy is intuitive as a freedom question: when the state uses coercive power to levy taxation and debt onto you and your children and grandchildren above what is necessary to protect basic liberties, it disrespects your liberty and moral dignity and substitutes its views about what your money should go for. He said fiscal policy is about 30% of the index, measured through taxation at the state and local level, government consumption, government employment, and debt, and that excessive taxation is seen in places like Hawaii or New York. Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022)
Zadek interjected that taxation is a direct denial of freedom because someone else will decide how that dollar is spent; once taxed, the government says you have no choice other than indirectly through the ballot box. Ruger described himself as a classical liberal or “statist libertarian” rather than an anarcho-capitalist, said a limited government that protects lives and property needs to be supported in some way, and said government does not create wealth — individuals do in relationship with other individuals. He invoked Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia and the term “distributive justice,” which he called problematic because it assumes a pie to be distributed rather than a pie created by people. Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022)
State variation and its politics
Zadek asked why voters would surrender freedom, and Jason Sorens answered that some people are willing to give up some freedom in exchange for other goods, that the index is for everyone who cares about freedom, and that even a hardcore socialist might consider 100% taxation unjust. Sorens said states that vote Democratic in state elections tend to have less economic freedom, with higher taxes and economic regulations, and that changes in voting cause changes in economic freedom; he cited West Virginia’s shift from strongly Democratic to strongly Republican and its rise on economic freedom, which he said they had predicted. Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022)
Sorens also described a residual of cronyism or corruption: some states waste tax dollars or give subsidies to private companies, tend to have more economic regulations on starting a business or entering a profession, have higher lobbyist-to-legislator ratios, more corruption convictions, and are rated by state journalists as more corrupt. He said this drives taxes up because money must be spent to buy off special interests as well as to provide basic public services. Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022)
Methodology and rankings
Ruger explained that the index weights variables according to the value of freedom affected by a particular policy to those whose freedoms are at stake, using a dollar estimate of the benefits of a pro-freedom shift, and that policies related to basic constitutional rights get a boost. He said fiscal policy is about 30% of the index, with the remaining 70% divided into roughly 33% for personal freedom and 35% for regulatory policy, and that variables range from government employment to raw milk sales, gun laws, cigarette bans, and occupational licensing. Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022)
On rankings, Ruger said the top state for freedom was New Hampshire, followed by Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, and South Dakota, and that Florida was number one in the printed fifth edition. He said the bottom five were New York, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, and Oregon, with New York worst by a wide margin, and that people should not confuse consumerism — Broadway shows and restaurants — for freedom. Sorens noted that New Hampshire does worse than average on zoning regulation, Florida on criminal justice, and that South Dakota does well on regulatory policy but has legacies of income taxes from the New Deal era. Ruger added that the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, and the West Coast have real struggles with freedom. Ranking Freedom in the 50 States (2022)
Across episodes
The excerpts show fiscal policy treated in two settings: the 2011 federal debt-ceiling and downgrade debates, where Don Boudreaux and Peter Suderman address jobs, borrowing, and entitlements, and the 2022 state-level freedom index, where William Ruger and Jason Sorens quantify taxation and debt as a component of liberty. The later treatment shifts the unit of analysis from the federal government to the states and from argument to measurement, but the excerpts show no development of a shared definition across the two.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state what a debt ceiling is in statutory terms, which bill or legislation was at issue, or what any court held. They do not give the outcome of the S&P downgrade debate, the contents of any tax reform proposal, or the specific figures behind the entitlement projections mentioned in the episode description. The 2011 Suderman episode is represented here mainly by its introduction and description, so its arguments are not developed in the excerpts.