Misspent government funds
Bookworm on Oct 15 2010 at 8:11 am | Filed under: Chris Christie, Economics, Government
If you subscribe to the WSJ, I urge you to read Liberalism and Public Works, which uses Chris Christie’s decision to shut down the tunnel project as a springboard to explain that liberal entitlement programs have destroyed public works programs:
To govern is to choose, or ought to be. And the reason New Jersey and so many other states can’t afford new “infrastructure” is because the politicians who’ve been running the state have blown the budget on everything else. For years, Democrats in Trenton have steered ever-more state revenues to government employees and their pensions, while squeezing state spending on the core purposes of government such as roads. Mr. Christie is telling them that the jig is up, and that a government that tries to do everything ends up doing nothing well.
That pretty much nails it. What’s really funny is that it’s the Big Government types who think of the economy as finite, which is why they’re so focused on redistribution. Capitalists understand that a healthy, relatively unbound economy can raise the standard of living for everyone, while Marxists see the money in an economy as perpetually limited, which requires government to decide who is entitled to its benefit. That same Big Government person, however, sees the government budget as endless, capable of being supplied in perpetuity by the same people whose wealth the government relentlessly steals.
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2 Responses to “Misspent government funds”
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“To govern is to choose…” No, to live is to choose. I made a note the other day: “The logical consequences of the entitlement mentality”. I’m no longer sure whether I was thinking fiction or non-fiction, but the entitlement mentality simply doesn’t want to recognize that choices must be made and that every choice means a decision is made to do or feel or think one thing and therefore not another, or an infinitude of others.
Does anyone else remember a scene towards the end of Atlas Shrugged when Dagny et al were breaking into the building to free John Galt? A man was guarding the door and Dagny gave him an ultimatum. He wouldn’t choose so Dagny killed him, with the thought that the guard wanted to exist without being human.
A mature mind recognizes that choices must be made. We are apparently being governed by children.
Here is a perfect example of what you are describing, Book, as well as a great segue from your post on British bureaucratic overreach and the people who profit therefrom:
http://www.europesillwind.org/films/europes-ill-wind-2.html
I am sure that all of our friends in the Bay Area can relate to this, with particular respect to that environmental monstrosity on Altamont Pass.
H/T smalldeadanimals.com