Op-Ed: Government is Still the Problem

Congressman Tom McClintock penned an op-ed in the Washington Examiner discussing freedom and socialism and the impact of both on government policies.

Via the Washington Examiner: 

Government is Still the Problem
By Congressman Tom McClintock

Zohran Mamdani’s winning message was affordability: that the necessities of life are increasingly out of reach for most people and that government is the answer.  “There is no problem too big for government to solve,” he boldly declared on election night.

He’s right about the problem but dead wrong about the solution.  As Ronald Reagan often warned, “Government is not the solution to our problems; government IS the problem.”

Housing affordability is a good place to start.  When and where a free market is maintained, home builders have every incentive to meet the housing needs at every income level.  The profit margin might be bigger at the top, but the sheer numbers of lower income families compensate with volume, assuring ample affordable housing for all incomes.  Government sets basic safety standards but otherwise leaves consumers alone to make their own decisions on everything else.  As the tax base grows, new revenues are available to expand water systems, electricity generation, highway capacity, schools, police and fire – all the necessities of a community.  Landlords have every incentive to provide as many rental units as the population needs, while competition keeps rents low and demand keeps units plentiful.

So what has happened?  Government decided to “solve” what socialists viewed as problems.  To “solve” suburban sprawl, the socialists began imposing severe limits and costly fees on construction permits.  Builders could no longer profit from building vast numbers of affordable homes so they focused their limited permits on pricier models.  To “solve” climate change, socialists mandated outrageously expensive add-ons like solar panels and hermetically sealed windows.  To “solve” their environmental angst they required pointless studies that were endlessly time-consuming and outrageously costly, adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the costs passed on to helpless purchasers. 

As these “solutions” drove up the price of housing, the socialists begin offering subsidies to lower income earners who had been priced out of the market by their own policies.  As taxpayer dollars flooded into the already constricted market, prices and rents rose still further.  As socialists “solved” the rental problem by freezing rents, landlords stopped building new units or maintaining existing ones. 

 When something – anything – is scarce, it’s expensive.  When it’s plentiful, it’s cheap.  Socialists have made housing scarce and therefore expensive.  No where can this be seen more clearly than when comparing the socialist utopia of California with the free state of Texas.  Last year, more building permits were granted in the Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas than were granted in all of Gavin Newsom’s California.  The median price of a home in Texas is $345,000.  In California, it’s $900,000.  Any questions?

Americans once paid for their own healthcare.  They could choose among  policies offered by hundreds of competing providers for the one that best met their needs and circumstances.  Most opted for inexpensive catastrophic policies for accidents and illnesses that could bankrupt them, while paying for routine care out of pocket.  Competition for their business kept prices low and quality high. 

But socialists objected to leaving the poor to an extensive network of charity.  They “solved” our healthcare inequalities with highly subsidized and mandated coverage that leaves consumers powerless to choose their own best options while severing the connection between the patient and the payer.  When somebody ELSE is paying the bill, the patient doesn’t care about the price and the payer doesn’t care about the quality.  The result?  Costs spiraling out of control, while patient satisfaction continues to decline.

 At the center of socialism is the mistaken belief that profit is waste, and if it can be removed from the equation, everything will be cheaper.  That’s the fundamental misconception behind Mamdani’s government grocery stores.  But profit is NOT waste.  Profit is the essential ingredient that spurs competition, drives innovation, demands efficiency and craves customer satisfaction.  Take profit out of the picture and you have just learned the difference between Fed-Ex and the Post Office. 

 Consumer electronics have steadily declined in cost while quality has steadily improved precisely because the socialists have not yet decided to “solve” this market.  When they do, you can expect the same high prices and declining quality they have already delivered in every field they’ve “solved” from housing to health care.

It comes down to four simple words: Freedom works.  Socialism sucks.

Congressman Tom McClintock represents California’s 5th Congressional District