What Sounds “Too Good” to be Good Usually Isn’t

Liberals love to promote pleasing policies regardless of the consequences, intended or otherwise.  Political favor may not be the sole motivation but it would certainly be naïve to believe it is not a consideration.

Some examples:

          *Raise the minimum wage

          *Extend Federal unemployment benefits

          *Expand the availability of free medical care

Minimum Wage:  Who doesn’t want to make more money?  The current Federal wage minimum is $7.25.  Democrats propose a hike to $9.00.  But why so parsimonious?  If wages can be raised by fiat, why not twenty or thirty dollars an hour?  Heck, let’s ensure that the annual minimum salary for everyone is no less than one hundred thousand dollars!

Well, maybe that’s too much to pay a shopping mall security guard, for instance.  Surely the shopping mall will do without the guards for that price.  It will buy more security cameras, most likely.  Ah, consequences.  Well, it sure sounded like a good idea.  Who would have thought it would have cost jobs.  [Thinking about the reaction to the feel good policy ahead of time would have helped.]

Unemployment benefits:  If a previously-employed worker doesn’t have a job and benefits are about to run out, why shouldn’t the entitlement period be extended?  Well, it makes superficial sense but fails to take human nature into account.  If a person is paid for doing nothing, wouldn’t that tempt some to prefer that status to being paid to work?    

Statistics make clear that unemployed insurance beneficiaries are more likely to find a job the closer they are to the benefit cut-off date.  That’s hardly a coincidence. 

 Medicaid Growth:  Shouldn’t medical care be available to everyone?  So if a person can’t afford medical care, he should get it for free, right?  But if anything is without cost, won’t people take or use more of it?  So government spending on the poor has exploded.  Who would have expected the result?  [Anyone who understood human nature.] 

Alas, conservatives consequently are at a distinct political disadvantage when confronting the Left on such feel good issues.  Liberals inflate the balloon of wishes.  Who likes the person with the pin?