A Challenge to Progressives

Progressives or liberals or whatever the collectivists are calling themselves these days are always touting their plans as good for the “general welfare”. It ties right into their “living” document make it up as you go along constitutional philosophy. OK, let’s give them a challenge. They want national healthcare while conservatives and libertarians would like a change in the tax system and fiscal sanity with of course no national healthcare. How about this challenge:

• They get a constitutional amendment establishing national healthcare for as long as it is deemed more effective than the private sector health system by the American public as determined by referendum each year or two.
  
• We get repeal of the 16th Amendment which would be replaced by a new balanced budget amendment that limits government taxation and borrowing to no more than 20% of GDP for as long as it is deemed more effective than the old tax and spend system by the American public as determined by referendum each year or two. Federal income taxes and payroll taxes would be replaced by some sort of consumption tax like maybe the FairTax. The folks in the IRS get transferred to the border patrol or can look for new jobs in the private sector.

Note being a person who believes in strict adherence to the Constitution this can’t be done without amendments. Government run healthcare is blatantly unconstitutional, Medicare notwithstanding. Medicare like Social Security was instituted under the bogus make it up as you go along policy. Humor me. In order to stick to the Constitution the referendums would not be the last word. They would just give the U. S. Congress and state legislatures a straightforward clue as to the public’s preferences. Final resolution would have to be real amendments to the document to repeal what the public rejected.

I would bet serious money that after a few years we would end up with the tax changes as permanent policy but government healthcare would be rejected. Here is a bonus. If government healthcare gets voted down and the tax changes do not we get to reduce the 20% to 15%. If the reverse happens, they get to add dental care. If both are unacceptable, it’s back to Go.

We all have a good idea what government healthcare would bring cost and quality wise. Just look at some of the state health plans like the one in Massachusetts or consider Medicare. The fact is they are unsustainable. That’s why all government managed healthcare systems practice rationing. Some rationing also takes place in a completely private system but is less than in state systems because the profit motive brings cost savings and technological improvements just like any other market driven system. Note that once all computers cost millions of dollars each now they cost mere hundreds (or thousands for high end servers) and are much more powerful. This dynamic has proven to work countless times.

As for a consumption tax my belief is that it would reduce the manipulative power of Congress substantially and would result in a massive increase in economic growth. There would be a time lag greater than one would anticipate under normal circumstances before really significant growth. That’s because of all the structural damage to our economy done by the booms and busts created by the foolish third world banana republic fiscal and monetary policies that have been followed by the federal government and Federal Reserve. But I think noticeable real growth would start within a year. There is an estimated 12+ trillion dollars in offshore investments held by American citizens and organizations. Huge amounts of that capital would return to the United States. U.S. and foreign companies would engage in a mad rush to build facilities here. Unemployment would drop to record low levels and growth would increase to record high levels possibly approaching levels seen in high growth Asia-Pacific countries. Note for example that China officially still a communist country has no capital gains tax!

Yes, I know it’s risky. Our health care could get screwed up for a year or two. But isn’t it worth it to show the entire country unequivocally that the ideas of these “progressive” fools are total nonsense? Besides, there are a whole series of other challenges we can present to progressives until they give up and all move to France!