Francis Menton: Retired partner in the New York law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. Host of blog, Manhattan Contrarian. We suffer from a stifling political and ideological orthodoxy. The central tenet of that orthodoxy is that all personal problems of the people in society can be solved by government taxing and spending. The obvious corollary is that since all problems can be solved by taxing and spending, therefore they must be solved by taxing and spending, and anyone who stands in the way of those solutions is immoral.
