Forward to the Past

By John D McGinnis

George Will recently wrote that American government is largely a redistribution device from the young to the old. The size and growth of entitlements, most of which are for the benefit of the elderly, and the growing amount of health care expenses with the largest portion of them going to the elderly, make his point. Will concludes that by allocating more and more dollars to the old, American government is investing in its past.

There is another way our government sacrifices our future to invest in the past. Virtually all government economic development and economic policy is focused on the past. Witness the call for rail projects in the State of the Union address. Even high speed rail is an old idea and if it needs government subsidies to come into existence, how good an idea can it be? Still, legions of politicians on both sides of the political aisle, will get behind the idea, because they can grasped the concept of rail.

Economies, however, advance by concepts that aren't even known by politicians or most people in general. At the time, did any politician or pundit understand what Henry Ford and John Rockefeller were doing to change the world? Did they understand what Edison was doing? Who saw what Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were going to do 30 years ago? The point is, what politicians push is stuff that already exists, because that's all they see and all they know. They learn quickly how to exercise control and peddle influence in existing endeavors. They are merchants of the past and status quo. But economies advance, as Friedrich Hayek often pointed out, by discoveries and innovations that nobody can anticipate. When politicians redistribute wealth to the already known and established sectors of our economy, they not only reduce the opportunity available for advancing our standard of living, but they also provide incentives to stifle economic progress. This happens due to the fact that established businesses will play the political game, curry favor with political donations, and use government as a lifeline rather than engaging the fickle and responsive marketplace.

Oversight of our economy by government and quasi-governmental "economic development" organizations does not work. If it did, the 9th and 12th Congressional Districts in Pennsylvania would be leading the world in prosperity. Instead, those districts are plagued with a culture of dependency and economic stagnation. They are just two examples of so many across our Commonwealth and our county where elected officials, who have the hubris of thinking they know best and who disregard liberty and constitutional government, impose their out-of-date thinking on the rest of us.