Fridley resident John Haluska's recent letter to the editor in the Fridley Patch is a great example of why a free and productive society cannot afford to have liberals, socialists, and/or statists in positions of political power. He and his fellow left-wingers obviously either do not understand basic economics and the role of government in a free society as envisioned by the founding fathers or just choose to ignore them for political gain.
The main theme of the piece revolves around the tried and true liberal quest to acquire and maintain political power through the promotion and exploitation of class envy and the promise to "correct" the situation by the redistribution of wealth through the power of government. These Marxist principles have never led to the prosperity they promise, but have invariably resulted in a degradation of liberty and economic prosperity.
Mr. Haluska accuses those of us on the right of embracing "greed" as a virtue and implies that anyone who is well off likely achieved their status at the expense of others. He apparently doesn't consider the possibility that a well-off person may have engaged in hard work, personal sacrifice, and wise asset management, with maybe enjoyed a little good fortune. The liberal notion that hard work and personal sacrifice that results in financial reward is the cause of poverty for others is laughable. It seems that liberals like Haluska believe that poverty, either real or perceived, is virtuous in-and-of-itself.
Liberals and socialists like Haluska obviously don't understand that economic prosperity is created and maintained by the growth and voluntary redistribution of wealth in a climate of personal liberty and a free market. People become wealthy when they produce goods or services that their fellow citizens want or need and voluntarily trade for with their wealth or labor. Jobs are created when the demand for these products and services becomes great enough that the producers need to hire others to meet the demand. Is it greedy for someone to make enough money to finance the production of goods and services and the resulting jobs that are created? Isn't such activity worthy of financial reward? How does taxing the so-called "rich", who produce the majority of private sector jobs and pay the bulk of the tab run up by the government, even more encourage them to keep producing?
In contrast, government spending is largely economic overhead. It does not create wealth, but consumes and redistributes it. Legitimate government services (i.e. those that the government has a legal and constitutional duty or obligation to provide) are both desirable and necessary - the free market could not exist without a clean, safe, and lawful society with essential public infrastructure. These services, however essential, do not produce the wealth needed to maintain them and must be financed through the wealth created by the private sector. This symbiotic relationship between the government and private sectors works as long as enough wealth produced by the private sector to support it. This balance is upset when government spending becomes a parasite that threatens the viability of its host.
The current economic problems we are experiencing are largely because the government has far exceeded its legitimate bounds and consumes too much of the wealth produced by the private sector. Government does not spend money efficiently because it is not subject to market discipline. If a private sector enterprise spends too much money, produces goods or services that are not wanted or needed, or does not efficiently use available resources it goes out of business. Any remaining demand for the goods or services the company produced presents an opportunity for others to fulfill. Businesses can, and often do, fail if too much operating capital is consumed through over-taxation and regulation.
Unions in the private sector have a vested interested in negotiating reasonable contracts in that they will suffer the economic consequences if the company or industry their workers are engaged in ceases to exist. There is no equivalent natural regulation mechanism in the monopolistic environment of the public sector. There is also a systemic problem with public unions in that they provide a lot of funding to the liberal politicians who assist in getting their lucrative contracts through the government bureaucracy. This largess is financed by the taxpayers who have no voice or advocate at the negotiation table.
Mr. Haluska's contention that all that is good will cease to exist if government does not provide it is laughable as, with very few exceptions, the private sector can produce most goods and services much more efficiently than the government due to the natural checks and balances inherent in the free market.
The very thought that government can create real jobs, or even an economy (green or otherwise) is just plain silly - it can create employment but very few, if any, jobs that increase the wealth of society. Theoretically the government could employ a lot of people by paying them to dig holes and paying others to fill them in. These employees would get paychecks, but what wealth would be produced? In addition to the false belief that government spending creates jobs, Mr. Haluska ignores the fact that many private sector jobs are lost or relocated out of the state because of the high taxes and business operating costs that are a direct consequence of excessive government spending and/or regulation.
The size and scope of government could easily be cut (and the tax revenue used to fund it left in the private sector where it will spur real economic growth) without the loss of legitimate and essential services. Yes, government jobs would be lost, but the vast majority of the displaced workers would find employment within the resulting growth of the private sector.
So-called "radical right-wing" beliefs of limited government, keeping more of what one earns, and personal responsibility are not a threat to our district or state, but the truly radical left wing policies of Senator Goodwin, Representative Knuth, and Representative Laine are largely responsible for the problems our state is currently having to deal with.
We as voters will have the chance to deal with it accordingly at the next election.
