© 2016 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. “If you
want to understand any problem in America, you need to look at who profits from
that problem, not at who suffers from that problem.” Dr. Amos Wilson
Take poverty: if we just handed the
money to the poor we would save money instead of the millions of poverty administrators
who make a good living on the poverty bandwagon. It’s an industry unto itself
where money is given from Washington to the states and the states employ
workers in their state to carry out the aims of the program.
The War on Poverty is a fifty year jobs
program for government workers. It has been wildly successful at spending money
on the administration of programs and giving political power to people. Sadly,
we have as much if not more poverty than when we started. But we are not
looking at who profits.
Former president Ronald Reagan said,
“We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by
how many are added.” Consider: who profits? First, politicians who promise to
help those on welfare. Second, all of the government workers administering
welfare.
Our country did not have a described
drug problem until the end of prohibition when all of those in the legal areas
were about to be thrown out of work because alcohol was once again legal. So
they latched onto illegal drugs, slowly at first but it is an industry that is
scared of legalizing these drugs because it would put them out of work.
They sanctimoniously claim they are
just protecting us from ourselves but in reality if all drugs were legal and we
treated drug use as a mental illness, the army of law enforcement officers
would no longer be needed. So rather than look at who is injured by drugs, we
know why we have the problem because of who profits from it.
Likewise, Congress spends much of
its time talking about protecting us from bad Congressional decisions. Namely,
we are upset when companies move off-shore but we don’t hold Congress
accountable. Why should we? Because most companies would rather be in our
country but the rules out of Washington leave them no choice but to leave.
Companies in the United States pay a
thirty-five percent corporate tax. Their competitors for the same markets pay
much less in corporate taxes in their countries. So our companies move to those
countries. We know who suffers: American workers and our economy. Who profits?
Congress who raises lots of money for themselves talking about the evil
companies who leave.
But they left because of the actions
of Congress. What is the chance that Congress will lower the corporate taxes
and make it easier to do business in the United States? Exactly zero. There is
no political money to be made doing what is right for Americans.
Our public education system has been
administered to death with the mania for political accountability. The testing
companies are profiting and so are the administrators but the students themselves
lose in an environment of learn an answer, be tested on that answer, learn an
answer, etc. There is so much profit that our poor students must suffer a
lesser education to provide a huge profit to administrators and testing
companies who of course provide political money.
The decisions that have lead us into
this valley of stupid are made by elected officials who do not personally suffer
for their stupidity and misaligned priorities. Every election the same
solutions are offered and the citizens suffer so that the politicians can
prosper.
Dr. Thomas Sowell said, “It is hard
to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting
those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
What is worse is putting those
decisions in the hands of people who profit by us suffering.
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