Robert F Kennedy Jr., the son of Former Attorney General and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy and nephew of former President John F Kennedy, is running for president. He started out challenging Joe Biden in the Democratic party. The Biden campaign, not wanting any challenge to their anointed one, threw up effective roadblocks to his campaign. They told the Democratic National Committee to ignore any results from New Hampshire where RFK would probably beat Biden in favor of making Biden-friendly South Carolina the first primary state. They refused RFK Secret Service protection despite his double digit polling. And despite the history of both his father and uncle being assassinated.
So RFK decided to run as an Independent and found out how difficult ballot access is. Something the Libertarian Party could have told him all about. So he started flirting with LNC Chair Angela McCardle. He is scheduled to speak at the California Libertarian Convention the weekend of February 23. Most, but unfortunately not all, libertarians saw through the COVID scare narrative and strenuously opposed the economically disastrous lockdowns and authoritarian nature of the vaccination mandates. RFK and Libertarians agree on the virtues of ending our offense policy with trip-wire troops stationed all over the world and our propensity to meddle in other countries' squabbles.. On housing he has some good ideas on zoning reform although that's not really a federal issue. He understands and opposes regulatory capture. He recognizes and opposes the extent to which multiple federal intelligence agencies are spying on the American people. Like libertarians, he's interested in bringing people together on cultural issues rather than useing them as partisan wedges. He has some good ideas on reforming our ultra-expensive higher education system. Namely making college debt dischargeable in bankruptcy and requiring colleges to share in the losses with lenders when college loans go unpaid.
But where the rubber meets the road, on economic issues RFK is wanting. He wants to increase the minimum wage. Good virtue signaling but anyone with a modicum of understanding of econ 101 knows that the certain effect of a higher minimum wage is a higher level of unemployment. Hardly optimal for the poorest among us. He also promises "free" childcare, subsidized interest rates on housing, restricting natural gas exports to ostensibly reduce gas prices domestically, stopping illegal immigration by securing the borders (good luck with that), trade deals to protect American labor from foreign competition and cue the liberal oohs and aahs, addiction treatment on organic farms. He claims it's all affordable by cutting defense spending. That's BS. A quick review of the federal budget reveals that mandatory spending like interest on the national debt, social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare and middle class subsidies like he is proposing more of, already use up most of the taxes raised.