An Overriding Law ‘Governs’ America

Member Group : Jerry Shenk

According to Marx, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”

Groucho was right.

America’s political process is governed by The Law of Unintended Consequences, an overriding “statute” that wasn’t passed by a legislature, signed by a president, a governor or reviewed in the courts. Feckless lawmakers never mention it, because they wish to be rewarded for the “nobility” of  their intentions, not judged by the quality of their results.

Legislation that interferes with markets and/or constitutional tradition often has unintended consequences. Furthermore, attempts to correct the poor results of earlier measures often worsen the problems they caused.

The Law of Unintended Consequences ensured the loss of much of three generations of disadvantaged, especially inner-city kids to the Great Society’s social welfare program that encouraged teens to devalue or ignore education, work, sexual responsibility and marriage.

Welfare proved that failure to think through a policy’s consequences often inflicts “cures” that are worse than the disease.

The Law of Unintended Consequences encouraged the Hershey Company, M&M Mars and other confectioners to export production jobs to avoid artificially high sugar prices caused by congressional price supports and tariff protection for American sugar producers. Every sugar job saved results in three confectionary industry jobs lost.

The Law allows bloated farm bills to encourage overproduction of subsidized crops, overuse of water resources and the associated fertilizers that cause excessive runoff into rivers and streams. Farm Bills include waterway reclamation funds to fix those unintended consequences, so taxpayers and consumers are soaked by farm subsidies and the problems they cause. Yet politicians boast about their environmental sensitivity.

The Law of Unintended Consequences sees to it that armed crime rates increase when gun-control laws are passed and deterrence is outlawed. Nonetheless, the clamor for gun control persists.

In another example, government-subsidized alternate-energy wind turbines have slaughtered millions of bats and migratory birds.

Voter inattention and, to some degree, indifference allow politicians get away with passing legislation without regard for the outcomes. People are busy. They have jobs to do and expect politicians to do theirs.

But Americans are beginning to wise up.

People are learning that, in addition to funding unnecessary programs yielding sub-par results, politicians use public money to distract them and buy votes. “Stimulus” checks are vote-buying bribes. Other, less direct bribes known as “congressional earmarks” and by other names in the states, are designed to attract favorable publicity and discourage voters from scrutinizing the quality of the results politicians deliver. Earmarks are unregulated, seldom reviewed and never competitively bid.

After months of inaction, Congress – Democrats and Republicans – spent December negotiating more than 7,500 member requests for pork-barrel earmarks totaling $16 billion into an “emergency” 4,155 page $1.7 trillion FY 2023 omnibus spending bill – a turd sandwich guaranteed to fuel inflation.

“We have a big bill here because we had big needs for our country,” lame-duck Speaker Nancy Pelosi bloviated.

“Big needs” included funds for silliness like “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers,” “…co-working and community space for transgender, gender nonconforming and intersex immigrant women…,” and thousands of other boondoggles.

When unnecessary, never-reviewed earmarks divert funds from critical programs, the results are, as the Law declares, unintended.

Or are they?

Every American tax dollar is confiscated from taxpayers who have begun to understand that far too much is being taken and borrowed for the modest value returned.

Americans have begun to realize that, for many in government, solving problems isn’t a priority. Politicians and bureaucrats “discern” problems where none exist and propose “solutions” designed to increase their job security, power and their access to taxpayer cash.

That’s where The Law of Unintended Consequences always kicks in. Unread, never-debated legislation, especially on spending, is certain to yield negative consequences. In fact, some “unintended consequences” may be intentional. We have seen the evidence in too many federal and state bills.

Bribery and other advantages of incumbency produce self-interested, entrenched politicians who will not fix the problems they create.

The remedy is term limits.

Many Washington/state capitals legislators have been in office far too long. Some have slopped at the public trough their entire adult lives. Government spending is out of control. Just like the presidency, the politicians who take and lavishly spend too much of our money while delivering lousy results can – should – be term-limited.

https://www.pottsmerc.com/2022/12/26/jerry-shenk-an-overriding-law-governs-america/