Economics 101

NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE!

Our Nations Liberals do not seem to understand this. You can have everything you want from government as long as you are willing to pay for it. And accounting for typical governmental efficiency, you must be willing to pay a premium over what the same item would cost you in the private sector.

Take education, since 1975, education spending has more than doubled in "real inflation adjusted" dollars, while the quality of the product has declined by half. In the private sector this would be enough to put the company out of business, but in the government economics class, this means the company is underfunded! Government schoolteachers enjoy job stability and protection un-imagined in the private sector where results are demanded. They are also paid on average 22% more than their private sector counterparts, and enjoy benefits roughly double that of their private sector brethren. The difference is that the private school teachers can be fired for malfeasance, misfeasance, of non- feasance, the government teachers largely can not.

This distortion in the market has caused the cost of education to sky rocket. The same holds true with the governments involvement with health care. Since 1972 the government has adopted an ever increasing share of the health care payment systems in this country to the point where in 2010, 62% of all health care payments in America are paid by or through some government agency or program. Health care regulations have increased by 800% in the same period. All of this as well as frivolous medical torts have caused the cost of health care to rise dramatically. And the governments answer as always, is more regulation, price control, more disruption of the marketplace.

Try this; next time you go to the doctor's office for a visit, ask your doctor, not the receptionist, but the private doctor himself, what he would charge you for the visit if you pay cash. No insurance or regulatory paperwork. I guarantee it will be less than half the rate he charges the insurance company or the government. And, why, you may ask? because his costs and time investment are greatly reduced, allowing him time to see more patients and earn more money.

Contrary to what most liberals evidently think, prices are not set arbitrarily, but are reflective of costs and investment. Business taxes are merely a cost of doing business. The higher the rate of taxation the higher the price of the product.