Time To Kill The Welfare State and Embrace Capitalism

Robert Tracinski writes an excellent article about the miserable failure of the welfare state or socialism/communism. Government run economies DO NOT WORK. Let's learn the lesson and embrace what does work - CAPITALISM. Below is Mr. Tracinski's article.

A while back, Peggy Noonan wrote that "unsustainable" is the "word of the decade." She's onto something. From the debates over Social Security and Medicare reform, to the Greek debacle in Europe, to the pensions of state government employees, to the higher-education bubble, we are saddled with institutions that are economically unsustainable. They are doomed to collapse by the ruthless certainty of arithmetic.

What do all of these things have in common? They are manifestations of the modern welfare state--and that is what is unsustainable.

I could rehearse the statistics. Social Security is projected to completely use up its trust fund in 2036 and Medicare in 2024, but both systems are already going into the red because there are no actual assets in those trust funds. As Social Security and Medicare begin to pay out more than they take in from payroll taxes, they are swallowing up the entire federal budget and guaranteeing a steady increase in our already dangerous debt. For some state governments, like California, insolvency is looming. For others, it has already arrived; Illinois hasn't paid its bills for years. And where we're all headed is demonstrated by Greece, where government debt now equals more than 175% of the country's annual economic output, well above the threshold (roughly 100%) where debt starts to become impossible to service.

Everyone has already had plenty of time to absorb these statistics. What most people haven't absorbed yet is the basic economic unsustainability of the welfare state.

The welfare state is taken for granted as the "normal" state of affairs, as if it has always existed. At least, it is assumed that the welfare state has been around for so many decades that the current crisis is just a temporary aberration, a rough patch that we can get through with only minor reforms. But the actual economic history does not bear this out. The welfare state "as we know it"--that is, at its current size--is a product of recent decades. In all of its branches, it has vastly increased just in the past 30 to 40 years. So the current crisis is not some temporary aberration. It is cause and effect. It is a direct consequence of the modern welfare state

Let's take a look at the major branches of the welfare state, particularly the ones that are in crisis. They are: education, government employment, health care, and retirement.

The first two are interconnected. State governments are in crisis, not because of firefighters and policeman, but mostly because of salaries and pensions for public school teachers. Government spending on all levels for public education has more than doubled since 1970, after adjusting for inflation, with no improvement in the system's results.

Something similar has been happening in higher education, mostly through the indirect mechanism of student loans...READ "The Half-Life of the Welfare State" by Robert Tracinski at RealClearMarkets.

The Deadly Meddling of Government in Healthcare

Yet another example of how government skews and disrupts the natural order of free enterprise. The availability of life saving drugs is being disrupted by meddling politicians in Washington.

...The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been stepping up its quality enforcement efforts — levying fines and forcing manufacturers to retool their facilities both here and abroad. Not only has this more rigorous regulatory oversight slowed down production, the FDA’s “zero tolerance” regime is forcing manufacturers to abide by rules that are rigid, inflexible and unforgiving. For example, a drug manufacturer must get approval for how much of a drug it plans to produce, as well as the timeframe. If a shortage develops (because, say, the FDA shuts down a competitor’s plant), a drug manufacturer cannot increase its output of that drug without another round of approvals. Nor can it alter its timetable production (producing a shortage drug earlier than planned) without FDA approval.

Even the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has a role — because minute quantities of controlled substances are often used to make other drugs. This is the apparent reason for a nationwide shortage of ADHD drugs, for example, including thegeneric version of Ritalin. And like the FDA, DEA regulations are rigid and inflexible. For example, if a shortage develops and the manufacturers have reached their preauthorized production cap, a manufacturer cannot respond by increasing output without going back to the DEA for approval.

Price Controls. Also contributing to the problems of many facilities is a little known program that forces drug manufacturers to give discounts to certain end users. The federal 340B drug rebate program was created in 1992 to provide discounted drugs to hospitals and clinics that treat a high number of indigent patients, clinics treating patients on Medicaid, hospitals and clinics in the Public Health Service and certain Federally Qualified Health Centers (more listed here).Currently, the law requires drug companies to provide rebates of 23.1 percent for brand drugs; and 13 percent for generic drugs off of their average manufacturer’s price on qualifying outpatient drug use. States have the right to negotiate further discounts and actual rebates negotiated are typically much steeper than the federal requirement. (READ "Deadly Regulations" at Townhall).

ATM's Cause Unemployement as per President Obama

"There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don't go to a bank teller, or you go to the airport and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate." (Obama)

That's right, the Smartest President Ever just said innovation is a job-killer. His next step, presumably, will be to demonize the Republicans for making such deep cuts to the Department of Buggy Whips. Hey, why is the President of the United States blaming machines for unemployment . . . on TELEVISION? Doesn't he care about all those out-of-work town criers?"

Jim Treacher writing at DailyCaller.com, June 15:

From a June 2 news story in the New York Times