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![]() Posted: Post subject: Government Must Spend Less |
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There is no greater belief today than the belief that government can solve our economic problems. Everywhere government is presented as a panacea for all our economic ills. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.
President Obama says he's going to mitigate our economic crisis by creating more jobs. If this sounds too good to be true, it's because it is. Politicians cannot create jobs in the aggregate, because the government has no wealth. Politicians cannot give us anything that they do not first take away from us.
Because there is a limited amount of wealth, every dollar the government absorbs either by taxing us, borrowing from us (or foreigners), or by debasing our currency, leaves one less dollar available for the private sector. If the government spends $1 trillion creating new jobs, then the private sector must spend $1 trillion less creating new jobs.
The question is, who will determine what jobs are created – the government or the private sector? When the workers and businesses that make up the private sector spend the wealth they produced, the goods they buy determine which jobs are created. When government bureaucrats spend the nation's wealth, they get to decide which jobs are created. Government bureaucrats simply replace our priorities with theirs. Socialism replaces capitalism. Political considerations replace economic considerations. Not only is this bad economics, it's immoral and unconstitutional.
If this stimulus package is bad economics, then why do so many politicians support it? Because the beneficiaries are visible and the victims are hidden. When the stimulus package pays people to build roads and bridges, the beneficial effects of our "benevolent" government are seen. Everyone can see the new bridge. Politicians can take credit for the increased prosperity of the workers involved, and those workers will know for whom to vote in the next election.
What is not seen are those in the private sector who are out of work due to increased government spending. Those workers may have no idea that their plight is the result of obtrusive government policies.
The notion that the government can give us something for nothing is an idea that's hard to shed. This economy will recover only when the private sector begins to grow. For this to happen, the government must spend less, not more. Reducing the burden that government places on us is the only stimulus that will work.
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