Constraining Leviathan

This article commemorates James M. Buchanan and his contributions to public choice and constitutional political economy. It focuses on what Buchanan had to say about constraining the State, or as he often referred to it, Leviathan. It concentrates on a handful of his major works that I think capture important elements of his thinking. It discusses Buchanan’s writings on public debt and government deficits; the size of the state; federalism; and taxation, among other things. It is argued that the main emphasis in Buchanan’s work as it pertained to constraining the State was to include provisions in the constitution that could achieve this end. These included a balanced budget amendment, rules governing the expansion of the money supply, constraints on the types of taxes that could be levied, linking expenditure proposals to the taxes that would finance them, earmarked taxes, and a generality principle, which would avoid a majority coalition’s exploitation of a minority. The article also includes a discussion of the current constitutional crisis in the United States.