My Turn: The lessons of liberal cities – Concord Monitor

Liberals have wonderful intentions. Most of them believe that governmental force is the correct way to deal with social and economic problems. Force being an unhappy word, liberals seldom use it. They refer to laws and regulations. But if you fail to obey a law or regulation, youre punished. In almost every respect, government is force.

Recently, the government of Portland, Maine, decided that begging in the city streets, called panhandling, was a problem. Officials considered giving the panhandlers jobs, like cleaning up the city parks. Lets assume for a moment that such a law was enacted.

The city would exert two kinds of force: First, it requires residents to pay money, called taxation. Secondly, the city requires non-panhandlers to not be hired. Theres no choice about it. Only the people who enacted the law have the choice. Non-panhandlers may of course lobby the city to hire them as well.

Okay, city taxes bring in money. The panhandlers get some of it, and liberals feel good about their intentions. What happens next?

People who did not consider themselves panhandlers but are unemployed go to the streets and start begging. Carrying signs identifying them as genuine panhandlers, they let it be known they want city jobs, too. Panhandlers in other cities hear that Portland is where its at, and the city becomes inundated with panhandlers. Panhandlers who are paid less than what they consider living wages, which is most of them, continue panhandling anyway.

Emboldened by their entitlement as government beneficiaries, their begging becomes aggressive. Prosperous residents cant step outside without being accosted for money. Taxes are raised. Portland is no longer a pleasant place to live. The prosperous move elsewhere, the city deteriorates, and liberals wonder how government can straighten out the mess and still care for the poor panhandlers.

Portlands government would not allow such deterioration, and the law would probably not be enacted in the first place.

But what if the major recipients of governmental largess are unionized government workers? What if their pension plans have been raised to exorbitant levels because unions, supported by federal laws, are wealthy enough to pay substantial campaign gifts to legislators? I give you Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago, all of which have had liberal leaderships for decades and have lost significant populations.

I hazard the following generalizations:

One: The actual, long-term results of big-government policies are opposite to the intended results. Government policies that do not have unintended results are listed below. Despite Americas huge and often harmful government, the nation has thrived because it has done these vital tasks reasonably well:

Protect private property

Enforce contracts

Adjudicate lawsuits

Keep people from directly hurting others by force or fraud (the police power).

Two: Lobbying generally does not cause big government; it results from it.

Three: Heres how money can be transferred from rich to poor without government intrusion: Private organizations solicit money from the prosperous and pay most of it, probably with conditions, to the poor. The results are better than government could accomplish, with far lower costs.

The actual, long-term results of big-government policies are opposite to the intended results.

(Archie M. Richards Jr. of Concord wrote weekly newspaper columns on money matters. Write to him at archier71@gmail.com.)

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My Turn: The lessons of liberal cities - Concord Monitor