PUBLIC CHOICE. Betsy's Page thinks George Will has made a bit of a stretch: "The budget evokes 1862. In that annus mirabilis, with the national government's writ severely restricted and the entire American project in doubt, Lincoln and Congress nevertheless enacted the Homestead Act, which sped the settlement of the Great Plains; the Morrill Act, which begot the land grant college system; and the law that ignited construction of the transcontinental railroad.

Today, with the nation in a war against terrorism and on the brink of a related war against Iraq, the president's budget calls for a dash for economic growth through another round of tax cuts, a tax-cutting pace President Reagan did not attempt; a prescription drug entitlement linked to reform of Medicare; and reform of the way Americans save. And in a budget-related document, the administration floats the idea of scrapping individual and corporate income taxes in favor of a consumption tax
."

Perhaps it's not that much of a stretch. The Homestead Act may have been an act of do-it-yourself creation of property rights where there were none. It also had the effect of fostering freeholding farmers in counterpoint to the plantations of the rebellious slaveholding states. The land grant colleges are pure pork barrel: in particular they made possible many of the Big Ten universities in a part of the country at the time distant and disconnected from Washington (nothing new here; also nothing new in that units from those states essentially won the war for the Union by securing the west while national command went through one political general after another on the Virginia front.) The location of the Pacific Railroad is also a matter of public choice. The easiest way west would have been from New Orleans to San Diego (although there would have been another spat with Mexico to secure the Carrizo Gorge.) With the south in rebellion, that route was not an option, but keeping California in the Union (see above) mattered a lot, and a route using only free states was available, commencing at Omaha. That choice also set the standard for the railway gauge in North America. Had a southern route been available, the standard may well have become the Southern (and Russian) five foot rather than the Northern 4 feet 8.5 inches (bear that in mind the next time the email about Roman military specifications and the Space Shuttle hits your mailbox.) During the Rebellion, Union engineers relaid Southern track to Northern gauge so as to enjoy superior logistics. After the war many Southern railroads went back to their old gauge and stayed there until the 1880s.

But I digress. This was a post about public choice, after all. I have to wonder whether genuine Social Security accounts, and medical savings accounts, and unbundling health insurance from employment, all haven't been postponed or cancelled (delay being the deadliest form of denial) haven't all become casualties of the war effort.