Health Care Part 1

The Federal Reserve part 2

The beginning is cut off, but the point is there.

The Federal Reserve Part 1

The Department of Education

Rich

Growing Your Government Business

To offer a real life example of how growing government reduces liberty and freedom I will simply put forward the local police dept of Scott City. Now I do not know the numbers of our local police dept. budget. However, in the last couple of years, the police dept. has built a new building and jail. Now this new building is far bigger and houses more prisoners. It has rooms for conferences.

Now what is interesting is that the size of Scott City's population has not increased. So if this government business is to increase its revenue to go along with its increase in expenses, the answer is obvious. The police dept must find more bad guys. How do we find more bad guys? We just declare more things illegal and/or go start handing out fines. Speeding tickets is a great source of revenue. But when people start obeying the speed limit because they don't want a ticket, do you think a government business can stay in business that way? No, it must find more lawbreakers.

Not to worry though. Kansas will soon be on the war path against the smoker as can be read in House bill 2221. You see, we simply create a culture that calls some particular act evil based upon thin air, and ta da, you have a culture that is willing to call that act a crime punishable by confiscating your money. Now we have created a new revenue source for our local police department.

We have seen this in certain counties that have banned watering the lawn because of water shortages. Did the company (the government) do what all companies have to do? Nope! They charge you more for less, the very thing our Local NYTimes Editor says shouldn't be done.

The beauty about all of this is that it can't be stopped by the normal free market system. The local police Dept may just keep growing itself simply because there are no normal economic restraints to stop it. How does one stop an inner city school that is failing? Competition? From where if government has the monopoly?

It is time to start thinking Libertarian and what the role of government actually is.

Central Planners On All Sides

In the Local NYTimes Scott City Newspaper, the local editor wrote about his opinion of the deficit issues.

The CCB would reduce government spending to levels not seen since 1966. Can you imagine living on the same income you had 45 years ago? 

The GOP loves it because it sounds good on paper. Government spending is being reduced by an unprecedented scale. Our deficit woes will disappear. Life couldn’t be better . . . except for those who must live with the consequences.

And of course what would those consequences be? Don't worry, he'll toilet to you every cliche and euphemism he is able to muster while assuming the company is not losing customers already. Nevermind the fact we are spending Trillions of Dollars we don't have. I wonder if his business has a printing press. He runs a Newspaper after all. But in this particular article he argues from the hypocrisy of the Political Right. How does this bolster his position? I have no idea. But here is an example of his argument.

Imagine, as an employee, if your company was to make the following offer.

The company is experiencing major financial issues and in order to bring costs under control, all employees will have to take a 25 percent cut in wages and benefits. 

Company spending would be reduced to the same level it was in 1966. 

And . . . here’s the best part . . . the cost of goods shipped to the company’s largest customers would be reduced by 10 percent because, as everyone knows, the company would be out of business if it weren’t for these customers who create jobs because they are the ones buying the product you make.

Then he asks,

How many employees do you think would be working for that company the next day, or the next week? How long could that company remain in business?

I'm not certain where this private business owner learned economics, but if a company is about to go out of business unless it cut costs, I guess in his world being jobless would be better. But hey, remember, for Leftist Central Planners, a government unemployment check is even better than having a job which cut 25% of your pay. Perhaps the company going out of business would be even better?

I guess in his Newspaper business world, if all of a sudden he lost 50% of his subscribers, his first move would be to hire more people and give everyone a raise? But the Local NYTimes Editor writes a truth when he stated,

When asked what government programs would be cut in order to balance the budget, Republicans have chosen to be vague.

So as far as I can see, he only proves that both the Right and the Left are Central Planners.

It doesn’t take an engineer, or a PhD, to understand that when you sharply reduce the flow of income, without reducing costs, an economic disaster is inevitable.

He makes this argument at least twice in the editorial. He equates government as a typical business. He also assumes government has a right to your money to provide you with services that it has no right to offer. The problem is that when the business of government increases, liberty decreases. Personally, I would like to see the government have its own going out of business auction and liberty be restored. But when in the same paper it is noted that the same conservative state of Kansas is going to attempt to make Kansas a "smoke free state" (as seen in this house bill), then the only thing proved is his love for bigger government.

I'll offer in my next post what I mean by this conclusion.