Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a nice weekend. As usual, this Monday’s post was written by Stephen Hall. Thanks, Stephen!!!
Sometimes I write myself notes or send emails to myself of ideas of topics for these posts, otherwise I tend to forget the errant passing thoughts which from time to time course through my head which I imagine might be the basis for a brief diatribe. Then, of course, I wait to the last possible moment to start writing about said topic, because procrastination is your friend.
So I had this link come across my Twitter feed, linked to the article, and reading the article thought that idea is not the least bit conservative, so why is it being put forth by someone who is at least often enough a quasi-conservative? https://www.dailywire.com/news/44579/hold-hank-dillon-conservative-case-paid-family-kassy-dillon
However, it then occurred to me that this was not an isolated phenomena; I have seen this before and been similarly disquieted by the willing acceptance of such deflected liberalism by many people on the right, and often by some in the more mainstream of conservative thought.
The idea, for those who do not wish to read the article and return to mine, is basically to accept the abstract notion of “paid family leave” so oft advanced by the leftist without placing the burden of such a leftist program directly upon the employers in the form of regulatory taxation and fascist socialist fiat as is so typically leftist.
Rather, the idea is to divert funds already taxed and have the state rather than the employer provide the funds for the parental leave, thus creating the new entitlement without the direct taxation of the employer and, at least in the short run economically, not increasing the overall tax burden.
Why do I say that this bait and switch has been done before? Because Nixon and Kennedy both agreed that there was no role for the federal government in education before Nixon conceded that the federal government could probably afford to divert federal funds to the states to help build new schools and Kennedy called and raised his bet by promising some aid for the payment of teachers as well.
Both parties agreeing that there was no role for the federal government in education naturally led to the creation of the federal Department of Education.
Decades go by and “conservatives” propose to disrupt the government’s failing educational monopoly by creating school vouchers, which only diverts tax money already collected to payments for education of students at non-public schools such as charter schools, private schools, and parochial schools.
The idea of “vouchers” does not cost the taxpayer any more money, merely diverts taxes already payed to benefits or entitlements for a certain portion of the citizenry.
The basic notion comes down to saying, “since we have already taken the citizens’ money and we’re going to keep taking the money anyway, why don’t we just spend it on programs more efficiently.” Sound reasonable for a pseudo-conservative position to waste the taxpayers’ money more productively.
All that is required of conservatives is that they first concede that leftist idea of government control is acceptable, and admit that their ideology has already been defeated anyway so why bother to attempt to stand on principles where you have already lost the ground. Just give up the point and stop fighting so that you can appear to be reasonable and as caring about people as the leftist pretend to be.
The idea that there is no role for the state in education, that public education is an improper exercise of civic power because education is a private good and not a public good, therefore can never be efficiently or effectively delivered by the state, is simply abandoned when one pushes for “vouchers” as a way of pretending the right can run public education better than the left.
I mean, it probably could run it far better than the left, but it would still be far worse than the effectiveness of a truly private, free market education industry. However, it is the principle of education as a private good which must be conceded and lost in order to push the voucher alternative.
It is meeting the enemy half way, the system remains publicly funded, but privately provided. The employer of these private schools remains the government and not the students or the parents, because the government is still the one paying the bills.
Likewise, the idea of the government paying employee benefits forces employment itself to be a public exercise; a socialist idea increasingly pressed upon the citizenry with the “civil rights” laws, the maximum hour/minimum wage laws, occupational safety and health regulations and many others incursions.
E’er I divert into this imposition of state control into the master-servant relationships, let us return to the real focus of quasi-conservative concessions, or creeping “liberalism”.
It was the hallmark of fascist socialism, as opposed to the communist socialism, that the state would keep the structure of the private corporation in tact while pulling all of the strings governing the production and distribution of goods and services from behind the corporate veil. (The communist ideal of socialism was to have direct state ownership and management of the production in collective farms and consolidated factories.)
The idea that the state is going to pay for the services each citizen receives, rather than the citizen themself or their employer in the form of a bargained benefit has several appeals.
It appears that this soulless corporation called “government” cares about its customers and protects them from those other soulless corporations. Thus one’s paycheck, benefits, and even continued employment come from the benevolence of the state, not the benevolence of the employer.
The employer is that cold hearted capitalist who would keep all of these thing from the employees. In short order, it paints capitalist philosophy itself as inherently against the individual and socialism as the only protector of the citizen. The politician takes the mantle of socialist protector of the capitalist oppressed by means of regulation.
The misbegotten idea that the government is going to take that tax money anyway so the citizen ought merely to strive to get back some of that booty through benefits and privileges, twists the function of the representative to the citizen’s proxy for returning, in whatever form possible, the people’s or state’s own money.
It hides the actual costs of the government entitlements behind this competition for government pork, because it doesn’t matter how much the government takes if the citizen feels that they are getting most of it back, ignoring the obvious economic inefficiencies created. Combine that with the deficit financing of the federal government and that cost is hidden even better in the future taxes to pay back the money the government borrows to pay for this pork.
The quasi-conservative better spending idea is not an approached based in capitalists ideals, but rather an acquiescence to the idea that their faction can better manage the redistribution of taxed money than the other faction.
However, probably the most dangerous “benefit” of such a bargain is that it firmly establishes the principle of the expansion of the state, that such things as education and employee benefits are the proper role of the government. It abandons the principle of the limitation of the government, by “compromising” away the ideals.
How much are capitalist ideals worth? Do you hold out for an ideal legislation which decreases the role of the government and reinforces private ownership? Or do you sell out the ideal and accept entitlements payed by government but distributed through increasingly state controlled minion corporations? I, for one, would prefer to be the iconoclast heretic tearing down the system rather than imagine that I could run the corrupt system more efficiently.
