Government Doesn’t Create Jobs

…it creates poverty.

According to (yet another) editorial in the Raleigh News & Observer, government should do what it can to help the poor.

The Good Book famously says that we’ll always have the poor, and no sense arguing with so authoritative a source. But a just society that has the financial power should do all it can to reduce the number of people in poverty’s grip.

So what can the government do? Get out of the way.

Not a dime in welfare benefits or any other program exists without being parasitic on the free actions of individuals in the marketplace — which is also the source of economic growth. Therefore, government must not only learn it’s place, but not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

It must also not create incentives for poor people to remain in subsistence poverty. There will be less upward mobility if being poor is easy (i.e. subsidized). There is also no justice in the persistent notion that the "just society" must mean government action. A society is nothing more than an agglomeration of individual actors. And, by the way, those that read the "Good Book" realize that moral responsibility for charity is a personal. It doesn’t not fall on you from Heaven on tax day. So let’s get beyond this idea that bureaucrats should take from A to give to B in the name of justice. No one will get to Heaven by moral proxies in Raleigh or Washington.

Remember, every dime the government spends on this program or that is a dime you can’t spend on the causes you think are most worthy. THEY say compulsory compassion via government monopoly. I say personal passion for social entreneurship in a dynamic market for doing good. Sadly, who’s right comes down to who has the bigger guns.
-Max Borders