Killing People and Breaking Things
It would be foolish to assume that just because a product or a need for a service exists, that any entity can do it well. For instance, you wouldn't get a company that specialized in demolition to build your house. Nor would you contract with an exterminator to have your yard landscaped. Likewise, if a concrete company offered to build you an airplane, it is my guess you'd politely decline and send your money elsewhere. And if they tried to convince you that they were the man for the job, you'd look at their past record and cite that as evidence for you to choose otherwise.
So why do elements of our government continue to insist that they can offer better healthcare, more affordably, than people who've been doing it for decades? Is healthcare even something that a government can be expected to do with any degree of efficiency? Let's look at their track record and see what it is they are good at:
The Postal Service was established in 1775. It has had 234 years to get it right but it is nearly broke. Meanwhile, relatively recent arrivals like UPS and FedEx provide much better service.
Social Security was established in 1935. The government has been managing that institution for 74 years and not even the democrats deny that it is broke - or soon will be.
Fannie Mae was founded in 1938. After 71 years, broke is a kind word to use for that failed government organization.
In 1964 Lyndon Johnson started "The War on Poverty," fully intending to defeat it. After 45 years and over a trillion dollars per year we still have poor a'plenty and the entire country is broke.
Medicare and Medicaid came on the scene in 1968. Like the others, but after only 41 years, they are both so broke the government is talking about scrapping them and... starting a new system?
Freddie Mac, birthday, 1971. It lived only 39 years before sliding into bankruptcy.
Trillions went into the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, commonly known as TARP. After pouring hundreds of millions into the pockets of failed executives it shows few signs of breathing any real life into our 'jobless' recovery. The US is now deeper in debt than ever before, our currency is devalued worldwide, and the Chinese are urging the world to leave the dollar standard - and I agree with them.
FDCI, the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation, a government entity founded in 1933 to protect the bank assets of depositors announced yesterday that is, you guessed it, broke. (Added 9/30/09)
But there is a bright side. In 2001, months after the attack on the Twin Towers, the US Military invaded and subdued Afghanistan. Resistance remains, and always will, but they broke the Taliban.
In 2003 our military invaded Iraq and was in Baghdad in just a few weeks. And while pockets of resistance remained, they broke the back of the Iraqi Army and began construction of a new democracy in the Middle East.
Why do I lump these enormously successful invasions in with these titanic fiscal failures? To make one of the brilliant points for which I'm becomming widely known.
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the hero of Desert Storm, when asked what the function of the military is, replied, "To kill people and break things." Apparently, however, he was referring to the role of government in general. Looking back at the 20th Century, the major killer of humans was governments. From the Soviets, to the Nazis, to the Chicoms, to the Imperial Japanese, to just about every African regime on the continent, upwards of 200 million humans were exterminated by governments - often their own. This score FAR outpaces the old scourges of plague, pestilence, famine, and disaster and is only exceeded by old age. The true disaster in the modern world is government. (Which makes me wonder why we're so worried about H1N1...)
So, under government stewardship nearly every major social program in every major country is broke. Under government stewardship hundreds of millions have been murdered in the last 100 years. Looking at this track record what can it be inferred that government is best at? Why, killing people and breaking things, of course. And they want to run our healthcare system? Seriously?
Futbol Guru, http://mises.org/community/blogs/not-a-lemming