Curtain Calling
IT CALLS FOR THEE
Doc Z diagnoses a few of the themes we’ve been talking about around here.
Union members won’t be among the workers getting “nudged into less pricey coverage” to hold down costs, since they will be legislatively immunized against such nudging. When you get nudged into less pricey coverage, I hope you’re comforted by the knowledge that your dental benefits and vision plan will be going to a deserving union member, who earned them by faithfully voting as instructed by his union leadership.
Welcome to Subsidy Nation, the midway point between a free-market democracy and a total command economy. [...]
The socialist vision of Big Government plays a game of diffuse costs and focused benefits. Subsidies and mandates give politicians an extra layer of protection from the voters. The politicians can even score points by demonizing the very businesses they are using to collect revenue for their agenda. The subprime mortgage crisis was a spectacular example of this: the entire financial sector was brought to the edge of the abyss because Clinton Democrats forced banks to make politically useful, but absurdly risky, loans to targeted constituencies. When the dust from the resulting implosion settled, the guilty political party was more powerful than ever.
The proper way to look at Subsidy Nation is to understand that everyone is part of the game. If you aren’t receiving the subsidies, you’re paying for them. You paid for the gas in the Fannie Mae ice cream truck Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have been driving around. If you didn’t buy a car under Cash for Clunkers, you subsidized the rebates for those who did. If you don’t live in Nebraska or Louisiana, you chipped in to buy the votes of Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu. It’s all very well hidden, even more than payroll check withholding hides your direct tax burden. You don’t have to write a check to Nelson or Landrieu. You’ll just notice that, over time, everything costs more and seems worth less. Your job might be pulverized in a collision of special interests. You’ll be rationed out of health care services you could have purchased in 2009. Your life will be controlled with so many strings that you can’t see the individual threads any more, just a grey tapestry that everyone complains about, but no one understands.
…”grey tapestry”–that sounds like a kinder, gentler Iron Curtain.
The old grey tapestry ain’t what she used to be.
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