In Michigan, you know, we -- you spend as a consumer $1,200 to $1,600 in every vehicle, if it's a domestically made American vehicle, for health care. Now, that's not what is being spent by other -- for consumers of other products that are not -- that are from other countries, because other countries provide some assistance. There is a partnership there. The full burden of health care is not on the backs of the private sector.
So in summary, the U.S. auto industry cannot compete because in other countries, "the full burden of health care is not on the backs of the private sector."
My question to the Governor is, even if the government paid for everyone's health care, where in the world does she think the money comes from? IT HAS TO COME FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR. All government expenditures are a burden on the private sector, because it's the private sector that will ultimately have to pick up the tab.
She should be honest and admit that she is a rent-seeker who is looking for yet another taxpayer subsidy for the auto industry.
Steve Wynn, on the other hand, was the star of the show, and here are a few quotes from the CEO of Wynn Resorts:
Health care and all of -- and all that other stimulus should have been held back, and the priority should have been job creation. And the most powerful weapon and the tool that the government has for that is its tax policy.
They seem to be going in exactly the opposite direction. And if the government had used its power to restrain its tax collection, they would have given everybody who runs small businesses, large businesses, a chance to hire more people.
Chris, Chris, the economists have had their moment. Really, everybody who has absolutely no experience in insuring people, creating jobs, have had their moment.
Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization's history. For some reason, that simple truth has evaded everybody.
The only thing that creates an increased standard of living is giving someone a job, the demand for their labor, whether it's you and I, Chris, or anybody else.
The people that are paying the price for this juggernaut of federal spending are the middle class and the working class of America. And soaring rhetoric and great speeches, with or without a Teleprompter, aren't going to change the truth. And the truth is the biggest enemy, the biggest obstacle, that working middle class America has is government spending.
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I think it probably goes too far to say that "government has never increased the standard of living onf one single human being in civilization's history." The whole reason for government is that it improves our standard of living over what it would be in a state of nature. The government's provision of roads, fire department, police dept., etc., also improve our standard of living. Welfare checks too can improve someone's standard of living (though, by creating perverse incentives they can wind up reducing the person's standard of living from what it would, eventually, have otherwise been). Anyway, maybe I'm taking Wynn's language too seriously," and that he means that the main engines of prosperity and uplift are in the private sector rather than in the government sector. --CSR
ReplyDeleteI also think that it's incorrect. I think the correct argument is to say that it hasn't increased the standard of living of anyone without also decreasing the standard of living of someone else.
ReplyDeleteAs to the provision of public goods like roads and fire departments and national defense, the justification for those are "externalities", or neighborhood effects as Milton Friedman called them.
The problem with neighborhood effects is that at a minimum, politicians overstate their impact and use them to justify projects and programs that are really private benefits to a political constituent. At worst, they can be used as an excuse for the government to get involved in almost anything.