Topic: Government Regulation
The Incentive for Bigger Government Our irrational emotions give us an incentive to expand government. My libertarian friends would say this, but there is something else.by Christopher Espinal
(Conservative)
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I walked through the streets of New York contemplating its twofaced nature. For every beautiful brownstone with an early 20th century facade, I saw some person pick through a garbage can in search of a meal for the night. How sad! I never want to live in such a condition, seeking food by the night and scrapping for change in the day.
Just imagine sleeping in a pile of torn cloth and newspapers to stay warm in a corner of the train station. Cops can harass the homeless if they sleep in Central Park so they scatter around the well lit city. I live too comfortably to even contemplate a daily game of survival.
My comfort leads me to ask the question, why other people don't live the way I do. Why can't they go to a warm home and have a home-cooked meal before sleep? Man I sure wish I can improve the lives of unfortunate individuals. Maybe the government should do something about this. Maybe Mayor Bloomberg could increase some taxes to allocate some money to make sure these individuals survive at least the following day. They could even raise money by charging businesses more for licenses. They can afford an additional burden on their expenses.
As you can see, I almost lost myself in the midst of advocating bigger government. Individuals of that mindset would vote for politicians advocating counterproductive policies that threaten not just businesses, but their ability to expand, and thus the size of the economic pie. This emotional incentive for bigger government can lead to more of these unfortunate individuals living in the street and pulling more people into poverty.
How can people seriously advocate policies that turn out to hurt more people than help? Well, not everyone understands economics. In matter of fact, not many people would like to understand the "dismal science" because of its supposed connection to money and greed.
Every libertarian would provide this explanation without mentioning one more fact. Public goods such as helping the homeless would not necessarily receive proper funding from the private market. Individuals don't know how to necessarily value the price of helping those who just can't make it right in life for some unfortunate experience. In matter of fact, they will probably expect others to make up for the amount they won't give. Therefore, we can't necessarily say that some charity will solve the problem of having individuals live in the streets with no real alternative.
This reality leads many economists to lean towards bigger government.
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2007 Christopher Espinal, all rights reserved.
Published: Sunday, December 9, 2007
Last modified: Monday, January 28, 2008
The views expressed in this
article are those of Christopher Espinal only and do not represent
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Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2007-12-16 07:06:18
"Public goods such as helping the homeless would not necessarily receive proper funding from the private market."
You state this as if it's an indisputed fact, but what is your evidence? My experience is that when people have the means available to them (despite every intention of the government to steal that means from them) they will do what they can to help the homeless and indigent...provided that such persons want the help in the first place. Not all do, you know.
My wife helped a local homeless man using her business. She's a gardener, and soon after she opened her business she found she had a couple of jobs that required more muscle than she has. So she went to the local homeless shelter (which gets very little business, by the way) and found that they had exactly one person there. He had some landscaping experience, so she put him to work. Within a month, he had put himself back on track completely. My wife wasn't able to give him full-time work, but he found that soon enough....sooner than my wife would have liked, actually! Today we see him at the grocery store or the gas station every once in awhile and exchange greetings.
I'm not saying that there are no holes in private assistance to the indigent. But I do know that when people are allowed to keep what they earn (instead having to turn 50% of it over to the Federal, State, and Local governments), they tend to be very generous.
I also know that government programs that are designed to help the homeless aren't worth much of anything. They do a very poor job of actually helping and often make the problems worse. I know this because that's what the people who run the shelters will often tell you, if you ask them.
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2007 Christopher Espinal, all rights reserved.