Governments don't like Competition
Competition highlights Poor Service and Elevated Prices
It also Encourages You to Change Suppliers
Switzerland, one of the wealthiest and safest countries in the world, copied the US Constitution while improving its safeguards. Armed citizens ensure a peaceful society with very little crime - far lower than the now disarmed UK. Citizens easily challenge and overthrow unjust laws, thereby continuing the USA's proud tradition of improving prosperity for all their people.
But how did the Constitution help make the USA such a prosperous society? What has since happened to reduce American prosperity? This whole series on government failure explores these very good questions!
1. Where did the US Wealth come from?
What created the wealth of the USA that the enormous federal deficit is busy squandering? The rule of law, a limited government, and a free market are all necessary and important factors. But there's one often ignored aspect crucial to improving anything: COMPETITION - especially competition between governments!
When you have competitors, you give good service because the clients in front of you can go elsewhere. Give bad service and next time they'll give their business to your competition. Governments as well as companies want to prosper, so they have an incentive to improve their service and make themselves more attractive. Hence competition creates a strong incentive both to improve the product and give excellent service.
Without competition, there's no incentive to produce competitive pricing, competitive quality, competitive service or even competitive delivery. Thus governments, big companies, and unions all try to minimize and destroy competition. Governments make competition illegal, they also have the taxpayer's money - your money - to subsidize services at unrealistically low rates so viable competition neither arises nor survives.
Federal monopolies make competition illegal yet also charge unrealistic rates. The Post Office has a law making it illegal to deliver a letter without charging more than four times their price. Yet they still lose money hand over fist. Their deficit in 2011 was some $9,000,000,000 - nine billion dollars - and so far this century the US post office has run billion dollar deficits every year which you pay via your federal taxes.
Lack of competition gives rise to such brilliant oxymorons as: Civil servants (who are neither civil nor do they serve you.) Continuing Resolution. Tax Return. And my current favorite: Rising Deficit. The Federal deficit has been rising inexorably for decades. Your share is many thousands of dollars for everyone in your family...
Without competition, there's no incentive to produce competitive pricing, competitive quality, competitive service or even competitive delivery. Thus governments, big companies, and unions all try to minimize and destroy competition. Governments make competition illegal, they also have the taxpayer's money - your money - to subsidize services at unrealistically low rates so viable competition neither arises nor survives.
Federal monopolies make competition illegal yet also charge unrealistic rates. The Post Office has a law making it illegal to deliver a letter without charging more than four times their price. Yet they still lose money hand over fist. Their deficit in 2011 was some $9,000,000,000 - nine billion dollars - and so far this century the US post office has run billion dollar deficits every year which you pay via your federal taxes.
Lack of competition gives rise to such brilliant oxymorons as: Civil servants (who are neither civil nor do they serve you.) Continuing Resolution. Tax Return. And my current favorite: Rising Deficit. The Federal deficit has been rising inexorably for decades. Your share is many thousands of dollars for everyone in your family...
2. The US Constitution drastically limits Federal powers
The US constitution deliberately gave the Federal Government very limited powers. The Tenth Amendment reserved all other powers to the people and the Several States. The competition between their different policies makes their different consequences visible. This means people can vote with their feet, moving to places with viable policies that produce desirable results. And people do move...
Detroit, Michigan has lost a significant proportion of its population whilst Texas has exploded. But why?
Detroit is suffering the long-term consequences of poor governance and economically-illiterate policies. Run by the democrats, its large government have spent like there's no tomorrow and the union-controlled city has now gone bankrupt. With high taxes, stringent gun-control legislation and subsequent elevated crime levels, most of their productive citizens have moved elsewhere, many to Texas.
These graphic photographs starkly compare Hiroshima, Japan, which was devastated by a US atomic bomb in 1945, and Detroit both then and today. The bottom caption reads: It's easier to comeback from a nuclear strike than five decades of Democrat control of government.
Detroit is suffering the long-term consequences of poor governance and economically-illiterate policies. Run by the democrats, its large government have spent like there's no tomorrow and the union-controlled city has now gone bankrupt. With high taxes, stringent gun-control legislation and subsequent elevated crime levels, most of their productive citizens have moved elsewhere, many to Texas.
These graphic photographs starkly compare Hiroshima, Japan, which was devastated by a US atomic bomb in 1945, and Detroit both then and today. The bottom caption reads: It's easier to comeback from a nuclear strike than five decades of Democrat control of government.
3. Texan pro-growth policies
Texas is great at small government, economic growth and attracting new citizens. It has policies which encourage new business, and so job creation is among the highest in the USA.
The Texas Constitution requires Texas to balance its budget, the Legislature can only budget no more than the amount of revenue that the Comptroller certifies will be available. The legislature is also forbidden from tying the hands of any subsequent legislature in any area, financially or otherwise.
The line-item veto allows the governor to eliminate wasteful expenditures which benefit individual districts at the expense of the majority, and reduces logrolling - making self-serving deals to support other members' pet projects. Texas understands that you need to:
"Encourage the behavior you wish to encourage!"
4. The Supreme Court support for the Federal Power Grab
Despite the Supreme Court of the US supposedly protecting the US Constitution, the Federal government has made significant inroads in violating its protections for individuals and States powers. A compliant SCOTUS has assisted with highly questionable decisions in total disregard of both the words in the Constitution as well as the intent of the Founding Fathers. See:
> The Commerce Clause
The Commerce clause is today used by the federal government to assert nonexistent authority over nonexistent commerce within a state.
One egregious Supreme Court decision - Wickard v. Filburn - gave the feds the power to destroy a farmer's crops and pay a fine, even though the wheat he was growing was solely for his own use. His production had exceeded the limits on wheat production ordered by the US government to drive up prices. SCOTUS decided that since his private wheat growing meant he would purchase less wheat on the open market, and wheat is traded nationally, his wheat-growing was substantially affecting interstate commerce and therefore under the control of the Feds.
This is the New Deal's "substantial effects" doctrine, which has been used to allow virtually anything to be regulated as interstate commerce, vastly expanding the federal reach far beyond anything envisaged by the Founding Fathers.
Of course, the actual effect of the farmer's wheat growing on interstate commerce was negligible rather than "substantial", but when you're seizing any opportunity to expand the federal government, who cares about the facts?
One egregious Supreme Court decision - Wickard v. Filburn - gave the feds the power to destroy a farmer's crops and pay a fine, even though the wheat he was growing was solely for his own use. His production had exceeded the limits on wheat production ordered by the US government to drive up prices. SCOTUS decided that since his private wheat growing meant he would purchase less wheat on the open market, and wheat is traded nationally, his wheat-growing was substantially affecting interstate commerce and therefore under the control of the Feds.
This is the New Deal's "substantial effects" doctrine, which has been used to allow virtually anything to be regulated as interstate commerce, vastly expanding the federal reach far beyond anything envisaged by the Founding Fathers.
Of course, the actual effect of the farmer's wheat growing on interstate commerce was negligible rather than "substantial", but when you're seizing any opportunity to expand the federal government, who cares about the facts?
> Biased Supreme Court Justices
The Federal government has packed the supreme court with justices who should but don't recuse themselves for bias. The constitutional defense of Obama's Affordable Care Act was prepared by Elena Kagan in her role as Solicitor General. Obama then appointed her to SCOTUS, and despite her obvious bias she declined to recuse herself.
The administration has refused to hand over much related material claiming "attorney work product protection" whilst its claim that Kagan was totally isolated from anticipated Obamacare litigation means such protection is both irrelevant and unnecessary. I can't think of a more egregious case of bias.
See the extensive analysis by Ronald Rotunda, co-author of "Legal Ethics," the Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at Chapman University.
The administration has refused to hand over much related material claiming "attorney work product protection" whilst its claim that Kagan was totally isolated from anticipated Obamacare litigation means such protection is both irrelevant and unnecessary. I can't think of a more egregious case of bias.
See the extensive analysis by Ronald Rotunda, co-author of "Legal Ethics," the Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at Chapman University.
> The Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare
The Supreme Court also has justices who betray their binding and solemn oath of office to make nonsensical rulings about the constitutionality of federal activity.
ObamaCare, as originally passed, commanded you to get health insurance, which was struck down as unconstitutional. Yet ObamaCare now taxes (penalizes) you for not owning what SCOTUS has ruled Congress cannot command you to own. Yes, Chief Justice John Roberts, your ruling on ObamaCare put you in the spotlight.
ObamaCare, as originally passed, commanded you to get health insurance, which was struck down as unconstitutional. Yet ObamaCare now taxes (penalizes) you for not owning what SCOTUS has ruled Congress cannot command you to own. Yes, Chief Justice John Roberts, your ruling on ObamaCare put you in the spotlight.
5. Federal Interference in States' Affairs
Far reaching interference with the rights of States to conduct their own affairs comes from the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, various gun control laws along with many others too numerous to mention. Federal laws impose both costs and requirements on state governments with neither their consent nor regard for their ability to comply.
In a 1995 report by the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, more than 3,000 separate federal decisions involving over 100 federal laws were identified which mandated action by state as well as local governments which they would not otherwise have taken. Since 1995, the Federal government interference has grown substantially.
States are fighting the enormous federal intrusion in their affairs. Washington State and New Hampshire have reaffirmed the enumerated powers and the limitation of federal power in the Tenth Amendment. Wisconsin has decided to keep its parks open in defiance of a October 2013 federal order to shut them in sympathy with the federal government partial closure.
What do you think? Does one size fit all, or does competition ensure you have a choice between policies, some of which give you more desirable results than others?
Food for Thought
"The days when the debt-ridden Uncle Sam could leisurely squander unlimited overseas borrowing appear to be numbered.
"To cure its addiction to debt, the US has to re-establish the common-sense principle that one should live within its means."
- Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency.
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