"[W]e face the absurd phenomenon of colleges encouraging students to go into six-figure debt ... but forbidding them to drink on campus ...

... because they're deemed insufficiently mature to appreciate the risks."

Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a. Instapundit) argues that the federal drinking age in the United States should be lowered from 21 to 18 — and that Republicans are particularly well-positioned to bring about this change:

Republicans are supposed to stand for limited government, freedom and federalism, but it was under a Republican administration—and a Republican transportation secretary, Elizabeth Dole—that states were forced to raise their age limits or face financial penalties. That was before the tea party, though. Perhaps today, when Republican leaders across the board are singing the praises of limited government, it is time for them to put their money where their mouths are and support an end to the federal drinking-age mandate.

And if arguments based on fairness and principle aren't enough, perhaps one based on politics will do the trick: This will get votes.

Democrats traditionally do well with the youth vote, and one reason is that they have been successful in portraying Republicans as fuddy-duddies who want to hold young people down. This may be unfair—college speech codes and the like don't tend to come from Republicans—but the evidence suggests that it works. What's more, the first few elections people vote in tend to set a long-term pattern. A move to repeal the federal drinking-age mandate might help Republicans turn this around.

There's also the fact that almost no other country in the world has such a high drinking age. And I think ours is the highest of any developed country. But I guess Republicans don't like the "America is the only country in the industrialized world..." style of framing.

My economic stimulus plan: lower the drinking age.

Minnesota is already considering it.

There are millions of Americans wanting to give so much money to American businesses -- bars, restaurants, liquor stores -- but they can't do it legally.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air responds to the Minnesota proposal:

In fact, the economics of the argument are usually considered a wash, since one of the points made against the ban is that teens buy alcohol on their own anyway.

I don't know who he's referring to who "usually consider[s]" it a "wash," but I find it hard to believe that many economists would seriously hold that view. Isn't it the most basic principle of economics that if you reduce the cost of goods, more people will buy them? Breaking the law has heavy built-in costs: the risk of getting in legal trouble, plus whatever extra efforts they're taking to avoid getting caught.

As long as we're just talking about the effect on the economy, this is all a question of numbers. The plan wouldn't need to increase every 18-to-20-year-old's alcohol purchases, just some of them. While "teens buy alcohol anyway" is a handy debating point, the truth is that plenty of underage people simply don't drink because they're dissuaded by the law.

Everyone knows that people under 21 already buy alcohol illegally. But you'd get a surge of economic activity if you dropped the legal barrier.

This was a good idea without the economic crisis, but it seemed politically impossible. Now that it doesn't just make sense but is also economically necessary, maybe it is possible.

(Photo by Daniel Krieger.)