Russ Nelson's blog

[ Home | RSS 2.0 | ATOM 1.0 ]

Mon, 18 Jul 2005

Democrats have stupid ideas

Earl asked me why Democrats have stupid ideas. I've already blogged on these topics -- that's why I had links to the blog entries, but I'll write really really succinctly here why I think the Democrats are pursuing a losing cause.

The minimum wage does one of two things: it is either so low that it doesn't help much, or it is so high that it puts the worse-off workers (the ones you'd really prefer to help) out of a job. Anything in-between is a compromise between helping people insufficiently and putting only a few people out of a job.

Public schooling hands the education of our children over to the government. The government is not your friend. It is at best an enemy you can tolerate. Such toleration should not include allowing them to teach your children.

Medicare pursues the automotive maintenance model of health care. You're the car, the doctor is the mechanic, and the government is the owner who pays the bills and decides whether the car is worth fixing or not.

Labor unions are fine as voluntary organizations. Unfortunately, they have been granted a protected status under the law that causes them to be more concerned about their own existance than protecting worker interests. Since their only task is to protect their own member's jobs, they serve private parties, not a public benefit. There is no reason to give them special protection.

posted at: 16:50 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry

Made with Pyblosxom