Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Another response to Elizabeth Warren

Notably, the core governmental services that protect people from harm — the military, police, and the courts — constitute a sliver of the the budget of federal and state governments. Most political spending goes toward entitlements at the federal level and welfare or union-dominated education at the state level.
Moreover, businesses directly pay for many of the services that Warren mentions. Businesses pay for their road use through gasoline taxes. Any given business faces a miniscule risk of a large fire breaking out, because businesses provide their own sprinkler systems, alarms, and other fire-prevention infrastructure. Private firms hire more security guards than the total number of police officers in the country. Regarding education, not only do many business leaders finance schools and scholarships, but businesses spend large sums training and educating their employees. (Whether government ultimately should provide services not directly related to law and order, and if so how, are broader issues.)
....
Warren contends "there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own." In a sense she's right: people get rich by providing enormously valuable goods and services to others who willingly pay for them. Warren and other politicians should not be able to dictate what "hunk" of the earnings of others they forcibly seize. Any social contract consistent with justice recognizes that legitimate government does not loot "the rich" (or anyone else) but instead protects people's rights, including their rights to their earnings.


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