Spending “Freeze” Means Spending Increases

February 14, 2011 20:18


Obama’s new budget, while calling for a phony “spending freeze” in actuality calls for spending increases in areas of education, biomedical research and high speed rail.

By Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D

Obama’s new budget, while calling for a phony “spending freeze” in actuality calls for spending increases in areas of education, biomedical research and high speed rail. This is because Obama judges these areas as important for the ability of the United States to stay competitive in a global economy.

Why does Obama get to decide this? And, if America cannot stay competitive without government funding in these areas — then how can America be competitive in other areas? If government funds are needed to make sure high speed rail is developed, then this must mean the private sector would never provide it. But the private sector will provide anything consumers demand. Why? Because there’s profit to be made in it. The same applies even to biomedical research. A company stands to gain huge profit by making discoveries or developing treatments that will allow human beings to live longer and healthier lives. Why can only government provide this?

These are the issues underlying spending debates. Spending debates tend to boil down to: Is this spending worthwhile? Now, who could argue against biomedical research, other than a few religious conservatives who are obsessed with abortion and don’t want stem-cell research? If the debate is held on those terms, of course spending for biomedical research will continue. The same applies to education. Education, to most people, means literacy, reason, science and enlightenment. What kind of anti-human moron would be against these things? Of course, vote “yes” for education.

Spending debates should not take place on these terms. So long as they do, government and politics will always win. This is why spending on these things gets bigger and bigger every year. What, cut Medicare or Medicaid? You’re against medical care? Health care spending goes up.

The terms of the debate must change. People who advocate ANY spending — not just big spending — for any and all of these items must be put on the defensive. “Why does government have to do this? Won’t people pay for this voluntarily in the private market? Isn’t there profit to be made for private entities providing these things?” Liberals and socialists, as well as big spending Republicans, should be confronted with these questions. Make them prove that without government subsidies, there will be NO education, NO medical care, NO biomedical research and NO mass transportation in America. Make them prove that the United States will quite literally shut down without government intervention in, and subsidizing of, as many things as possible.

Keep in mind two important facts. One, government doesn’t really care about innovation. Government is slow, plodding, and filled with red tape. Government is all about enforcing rules for the sake of those rules, not for any broader innovation in society. Government cares about control, not competence. Anyone who has ever interacted with any kind of government agency knows this.

Second, there would be no government financing of anything without a private sector to support it. Government control of entire industries and sectors of the economy, such as education, relies upon hated private money taken from productive, though still hated, private sources. Government does not create its trillion-dollar budgets — nor even its trillion-dollar deficits — out of thin air. For wealth to be spread around, wealth must be created in the first place. This fact is too simple and too obvious to even conceive that it would be overlooked; but overlooked and ignored it is. Our Big Government politicians’ solution is to throw money at every problem. In the process, they morally condemn those who created that money as “selfish” and even evil. Yet it’s that very evil they depend upon. This further illustrates how hatred of money and wealth is not what inspires these self-appointed guardians of phony goodness. Yes, they want to destroy capitalism – because it gets in the way of their need to control.

Private spenders of money are trying to make a profit. They do this by pleasing as many customers as possible. Public do-gooders didn’t make that money; it’s not theirs, and they don’t treat it with the same respect and rationality that someone whose money it belongs to would. Worse, the public do-gooders in office act as if that money is always going to keep flowing, even as the gradual nationalization of the economy has resulted in less and less economic growth. The lemon is running dry while government promises ever more billions – no, make that trillions – of gallons of lemonade, free for all.

Obama’s budget is the same-old same-old. Now let’s see if the Republicans in Congress really understand what “change” means.

Dr. Hurd blogs at DrHurd.com



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