Ben Carson? A Mixed Review

As one of the three Outsiders who have dominated up to 50% or more of GOP Presidential candidate polls, Carson comes from a different background and perspective. Let me point out that Carson is not exactly a pro-liberty candidate and lacks public sector executive experience. Nevertheless, I could see myself voting for him as a protest vote against Trump or the Democratic nominee, likely Clinton vs. Sanders.

I have several differences with Carson, including but not restricted to:

• the 2008 tsunami. I was listening to Sunday talk soup, when Carson started waxing enthusiasm over Glass-Steagall  and blaming 1990's deregulation for the crisis. There are several reasons for the tsunami, but the idea that the cause had to do with blurring the lines between (highly regulated) commercial and investment banking was not one of them. We can look at fiscal and monetary policies which materially exacerbated the housing bubble--that is, the government was the chief cause of the tsunami.
• minimum wage policy. I heard him argue for raising the minimum wage and indexing it. This is particularly misguided. Minimum wages hurt lower-skilled/inexperienced/younger workers by pricing them out of the labor market, and it's inconsistent with his otherwise declared intent to let the free market work.
• anti-trade policy. Carson attacks the trade imbalance and talks tariffs, i.e., trade wars. Trade wars are counterproductive lose-lose policies. Don Boudreaux and others point out that outgoing dollars often make their way back to the US economy in terms of investment shoring up the US economy.
• opposition to citizenship path for unauthorized aliens. Whereas his support for guest worker programs is a step in the right direction of understanding the real cause behind unauthorized entry, I don't like blaming aliens for working around restrictive, bad immigration policy. Ultimately people who work here and pay taxes should have a say on political policy.
• interventionist foreign policy. Carson has a somewhat more nuanced position than your typical neocon, because he didn't support going into Iraq but he is concerned about ISIS, the Taliban, etc.

Let's do a lightning round on the issues (my views follow with respect to Carson's position):

• unrestricted abortion: strongly opposes. AGREED. The preborn child has an unalienable right to live. However, this should not be a federal issue. Police powers reside with the states by the tenth amendment.
• compelling women/minority hiring: opposed. AGREED. This policy violates the rule of law. Constitutionally government must not enact or enforce discriminatory policy. The private sector, which operates by voluntary association, can handle related issues through the social context. Companies that do not treat employees or customers fairly earn a bad reputation
• State-defined gay marriage: opposed. AGREED. Carson is more worried about the unintended consequences of public policy intervening in the social context. I might point out this has traditionally been a state, not federal responsibility by the Tenth Amendment. I would prefer to hear him argue for privatization of marriage.
• God in the public sphere: supports. DISAGREE. I think if and when religion is co-opted by the State, religion loses its moral authority. However, I don't believe in unconstitutional censorship of religious speech in the public sector, and I'm opposed to the State policies that infringe on religious/moral freedom (e.g., the ObamaCare mandate, an obligation to service gay weddings, etc.) I think for the most part Carson and I agree. I have to wince on his demagoguery on the question of a Muslim Presidency. In my lifetime, JFK and Mitt Romney had to deal with religious discrimination in their Presidential runs. I would not have gone there.
• Expand ObamaCare: opposed. AGREED. Carson here has some nuances I don't agree with, including a concept of health insurance as regulated nonprofits, and he seems to endorse government-run catastrophic insurance, which I oppose on free market grounds.
• Privatize social security: opposed/transform. DISAGREE. Whereas adjusting retirement and/or converting it into a Ryan-like supplemental program are serious, long-overdue reforms, they are a poor substitute to ending an unsustainable morally hazardous policy. I recognize, of course, that there are expectations based on lifetimes of paying into the system and there would need to be some sort of transition period, but ultimately young people need to be vested in their own retirement dollars.
• Vouchers for school choice: strongly supports. DISAGREE. I believe we both have a problem with federal meddling with traditional local/state responsibilities. I agree with promoting school choice, but I see privatization as a more comprehensive approach without subsidizing consumer decisions; I see charity playing as more of a role in need supplementation. Obviously, on the local front, I believe that parents should have more control over the expenditure of their own school tax dollars.
• EPA regulations are too restrictive: opposes. DISAGREE. I would eliminate the EPA; in a liberalized system, polluters, etc., would be sued for relevant damages, plus transparency on the causes of pollution would be damaging to the reputation of those businesses.
• Stricter punishment reduces crime: opposes. AGREE.  Mandatory/three-strikes policies result in unjust consequences and can be counterproductive. We need to distinguish between violent and other types of crime; we already have one of the most incarcerated nations on earth.
• Absolute right to gun ownership: supports. AGREE. Everybody has a natural right to self-defense,
• Higher taxes on the wealthy: strongly opposes. AGREE. Carson favors low, flat taxation rates, opposes redistributive programs. I would like to hear him talk about more of a balance between income (counterproductive) and consumption.
• Pathway to citizenship for unauthorized aliens: opposes. DISAGREE. See above.
• Support and expand free trade: strongly opposes. DISAGREE. I would argue we are talking more managed trade than free trade, but I see it as a step in the right direction. See above.
• Supports American exceptionalism: supports. AGREE. My position is somewhat nuanced: I am opposed to multilateral authoritarianism,  but I disagree with the idea of being the world's policeman and imposing our values on others.
• Expand the military: supports. DISAGREE. We outspend something like the next 10 nations put together. I think we need a more streamlined, less interventionist agenda. I do support modernizing the military, but I'm wary of the military-industrial complex.
• Easier voter registration: opposes. AGREE. It's often easier to vote or register than to cash a check at the bank (e.g., it's often just a check mark when you process paperwork at the DMV, which I've done during two recent moves); this raises a serious issue of voter fraud, which Democrats, typically the beneficiary of these effort, deny, despite overwhelming evidence. No one is talking about denying a citizen of the right to vote.
• Avoid foreign entanglements: oppose/nuanced. DISAGREE. He does talk about energy independence as a preventive measure on war making; this seems to buy into the polemical leftist talking point that wars are over oil. He does talk about opposing going into Iraq, but he has fewer qualms taking on ISIS. I am far more skeptical about military adventures, particularly half a world away.
• Prioritize green energy: oppose. AGREE. The market should decide winners and losers, not the State. I'm particularly concerned about crony capitalists profiting from politicized special interest environmentalism.
• Marijuana is a gateway drug: oppose. AGREE. I personally think marijuana use is a mistake, particularly with the still developing brains of children and young adults, but I haven't seen compelling evidence of a causal link between the use of marijuana and harder drugs. As someone who has never smoked or used recreational drugs (and I took almost no prescribed pain pills after an outpatient procedure over 6 years back) and have hardly purchased any alcoholic beverages for years (I did buy a beer at a farewell dinner for a business colleague earlier this year) [I'm not a teetotaler, but I might limit myself to a beer or glass of wine on social occasions or visit home: I have liked an occasional shot of Harvey's Bristol Cream, which I was introduced to when I went caroling back in my UH grad school years]), I don't believe in counterproductive prohibition public policy, of prosecuting victimless crimes. Technically, Carson has a more nuanced position; he is more accepting of medicinal marijuana, and I don't think I've heard him make more of a Tenth Amendment argument as to regulation of marijuana.
• Stimulus vs. market-led recovery; strongly oppose. AGREE. The idea that politically motivated spending is somehow intrinsically virtuous is self-serving hubris.

I would have selected other items in a list of 20 questions to differentiate candidates, e.g., devolvement of domestic programs and regulatory authority to the states; business/territorial taxation; the second Federal Reserve (full employment) mandate; privatization of various government services (e.g., federal insurance, the USPS, mortgages and student loans, etc.); electoral reforms (non contiguous legislative terms, single-term President, recall of legislators and the President, 20-year caps on federal employment, including judges); structural budget reforms, requiring a balanced budget and explicit reserves for currently unfunded liabilities; privacy and other individual rights, etc.

Ben Carlson, as one of the top two rivals for the GOP nomination, has been getting increasingly involved in news kerfuffles, e.g., Muslim Presidents, pyramids, a violent streak as a kid, the retake of a psychology class final, and the claim he turned down a scholarship to West Point. (I've commented elsewhere on the last story and concluded it was an innocuous oversimplification; he was led to believe that he stood a good chance of being appointed to West Point, but he never applied for nomination because the military commitment would put his med school dream on hold.)  For me, more troubling were the no-Muslim-President kerfuffle, which is not a valid constitutional consideration for the Office and blatantly prejudicial in my point of view, and the discussion of drone military strikes defending the southern border. I don't have an issue with the Border Patrol using drones for surveillance purposes, to facilitate effective deployment of agents on the ground, etc., but given Posse Comitatus Act restrictions on domestic operations by the military (police power is maintained by the states (Tenth Amendment)), it's jarring to hear Carson talk, short of a foreign invasion, discuss drone strikes in the US (in particular, the unthinkable idea of collateral damage including American civilian casualties). (For a good understanding of Posse Comitatus constraints, consider the role of the National Guard in assisting border security.) I have been a persistent critic of Obama's illegal expanding drone wars, and Rand Paul filibustered a few years back trying to get answers to US drone activities in the US. I'm not sure why Carson would even go there, unless he wanted to show he is as tough as Trump is on unauthorized immigrants in a populist appeal.

The source for the lightning round questions classifies Carson as a libertarian-conservative. As a libertarian-conservative, I don't think so. I see him as more  a populist conservative with some notable exceptions to orthodoxy, e.g., the minimum wage, tariffs, Glass-Steagall, etc. On the other hand, he is highly intelligent and has an unflappable nature. Trump has accused Carson of being too "low energy"; as Jeffrey Tucker recently said, if we have to have a President, it would be better having a low energy one: primum non nocere. I would feel more comfortable with his having more executive experience and policy expertise. Rand Paul is still my first choice, but of the 3 outsiders, he's the best choice and infinitely better than any of the Democrats.