Government Action Creates Fair Markets

Actually, it wasn't the government that collectively set labor and health standards. Or for that matter, determined a scope of week weeks, child labor, retirement pensions, profit sharing, or even basic human resource benefits. It was rather the chief efforts of the labor union movements that grew out of the 1870's industrialist cartels and the advent of yellow journalism that brought the excesses of the industrialist cartels to the attention of the emerging middle class.

This point has been argued often and conclusively on Ornery to the point that even people who have strong misgivings or even oppose the current unions today have to admit that the work environment enjoyed by everyone is primarily the result of union activities from the 1900-1950 time range. It was only after unions became a strong political force that the government codified what had already been won by unions for everyone. OSHA would not exist had there not first been unions operating in the private sector demanding employers pay attention to worker safety rights.

As to government reductions in poverty, the CBO has oft notified Congress that the impacts of the social programs that originated with the Great Society have at best plausibly stemmed some poverty. But the unvarnished truth is that the social programs started by and maintained by the government have had no impact on poverty. The periods when people tended to do best more recently include the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton tenures where the growth of the economy combined with reduced social spending actually raised the living standards of the poor in the country and even managed to get people to move beyond Federal poverty standards.

The issue isn't whether the government can mitigate the needs of people on a temporary basis. Because the government can. Look at Katrina and Rita as examples. In unusual circumstances where a free market cannot function, only government action can restore a market and maintain a population until the market recovers. But then again, look at the Katrina and Rita policies that have allowed people to live rent free ever since the hurricanes until now. The unintended consequence of government emergency aid is that the people receiving it often delay or do not even attempt to remove the need for such aid. If you haven't recovered from Katrina or Rita by now, it isn't because the free market has not recovered. It is because you have learned that by your own inaction, the government will secure your needs for you.

What this spending plan amounts to is a mechanism by which disputed or redundant public policy spending items have been bundled together into the ultimate wish list. Cheifly, the items contained in it are those spending items that have Democrat advocates supporting the agendas that are the basis of such spending items. Whether it is a local pork plan to widen a road, build seafaring canoes in Hawaii, or give block grants to ACORN- the majority represents plans and spending agendas that predated President Clinton's declaration that the Era of Big Government was over.

If even Clinton thought these types of spending plans were bad, how then can we now see this jump-start of all things government to be good? If the Patriot Act was a direct attack on our personal freedoms, then surely the stimulus packages of the last 8 months has to represent a direct attack on our market economy and the level of government control that will accrue during the planned disbursement of funds from these plans.