Walter Russell Mead is discussing the fact that anti-public union fever is not just for Wisconsin anymore. He comes up with a quote which is the perfect explanation for why the SIHTF.
From a state that is bluer than blue, ultraviolet Vermont, comes the news that Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democratic governor with solid Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, will not solve his state’s fiscal problems with a tax increase. Why? As Politico reports, “We’ve already got a progressive income tax in Vermont, and we can’t get more progressive because we’ll lose the few payers that we have,” Shumlin said in between sessions at the National Governors Association meeting. “We don’t have any more tax capacity.”
“I can see New Hampshire from my house,” said the governor, noting that Vermont is already losing business, investments and residents to its low-tax neighbor.
As Dame Margaret Thacher (a grocers daughter) is reputed to have said,
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
It looks like eventually has arrived.
H/T Instapundit
Cross Posted at Power and Control
Comments
4 responses to “Eventually You Run Out Of Other People’s Money”
somewhat more of a social-conservative here, although speaking in sympathy with the libertarian hosts …
A question: consider a purely voluntary “society” — a club, a fraternity, a mutual benevolence pact. The US was, and may still be, filled with them. The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. The United Commercial Travelers. The Lutheran Brotherhood. Everybody pays in. Once in a while, bad luck strikes a member. The society pays out, according to a pre-established agreement.
No greed. No profit. At least in theory, just mutual inter-dependent socialized risk.
Now, consider a game-changing risk. Whatever the calculations going into the original deal, the situation changes. Under the new risk, a bunch of people who had not before voluntarily joined the mutual protective society suddenly now want in. And the society suddenly strains to limit risks by restricting new participants. Imagine…
Consider ordinary health insurance, as bought by married people (mostly working men) to socialize risks to themselves and their dependents (mostly wives and children.) Consider AIDS…
If the old society admits the new, at-risk, “married” couples under the old actuarial deals, how long before the voluntary society becomes compulsary?
Twenty years? Thirty?
How long before they run out of THEIR OWN money to pay for the needs of other, newer, associates?
This is not a complete analysis. But the debate on “gay marriage” tends to stay away from what I saw, lived through, as the origins. Marriage became cool among a particular minority when it became financially beneficial.
Often I hear that THAT marriage has nothing to do with MY marriage. I beg to differ.
But I’d like to hear your thoughts. How do even voluntary societies balance fairness, consistency, continuity, and externally driven notions of “inclusion”?
pouncer,
The excluded form their own society.
Of course it is always possible that the incentive is for the gay guy to marry a woman which could be either “fraud” (collusion with the female) or some unsuspecting woman is made unhappy (“but he was always so buff and treated me nice”). There are moral hazards (a technical term) no matter which way you turn.
I had a conservative friend once who went on for pages about gays – at one point saying “but they seem smarter than average and high earners.” So they pay their own way. Good. What’s the beef (you will pardon the expression)?
My mate and I (going together 37 years, married 28 years – 4 children) could never figure out what all the excitement was about. We have had gay friends of both sexes when we lived in Chicago. Especially when we lived not too far from the theater district on the Near North Side (Broadway and Halsted).
We moved out because it got too expensive (the first mate needed a separate apt. with the kids because we used to live in my electronics shop). It was never because we feared teh gay rubbing off (if you will pardon the expression).
In fact when we moved to Rockford I made close friends with a gay guy and we used to have lots of fun together (not that kind) and the mate and the kids loved him (not that way). That lasted for about 2 years until he moved away. He put the moves on me once. I said “thanks for the compliment but I like girls for that sort of thing” and that was the end of it. Our friendship remained.
Marriage became cool among a particular minority when it became financially beneficial.
Why not just change the incentives? Suppose only “married with children”. Now the gays are going to agitate for adoption.
It will sort itself out over time. Maybe gays getting divorced will teach us something about M/F divorce. A control group so to speak.
And M/F divorce is the real problem:
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2011/02/there_is_nothin_2.html
I have no idea how to fix the problem other than possibly going to a contract only system like Jews use. There are standard contracts of course. And case law. If you want to get married under such a system it is possible in America. Today.
But what the commie-libs lose by increasing tax rates they make up by increasing the hate against the sucker still paying those taxes.
Liberalism is about malicious envy. If Liberals have to burn down their own state to punish an enemy they will call that a victory (see CA, MI, NY, OH, etc.).