John Taylor and the Freedom & Prosperity Agenda

There's an excellent interview (in two parts) with John Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy over at One Man's Trash. In part one, Taylor describes part of the impetus for launching the Freedom & Prosperity Agenda for Virginia last month:

In thinking about the situation, it became increasingly obvious to me that conservatives in Virginia had to stay on offense by promoting a forward-looking agenda that would rally the right-thinking people in the General Assembly, the grassroots, and a sizable portion of the business community. An old Chinese proverb states, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” To be able to build support for any cause, people have to understand what you are trying to accomplish. I felt that if conservatives defined their goals, and articulated a strategy for achieving those goals, they could build an enormous base of support here in Virginia.

In part two, he identifies what he considers the most important plank in the agenda:

The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). This legislation reestablishes the hierarchy of the people to their government. It reestablishes the notion of limited government. It checks the influence of special interests. It forces politicians to prioritize spending alternatives.

Seldom is a politician going to vote against his own perceived self-interest by limiting government and by restricting his own power of the purse. A TABOR allows the people to reclaim their original role of sovereign as opposed to the current and somewhat lesser role of sheep to be sheared.

Both parts of the interview are well worth reading.