{"id":36087,"date":"2018-07-15T01:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-07-15T05:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=36087"},"modified":"2018-06-25T08:49:33","modified_gmt":"2018-06-25T12:49:33","slug":"qotd-temporary-government-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/07\/15\/qotd-temporary-government-programs\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: &#8220;Temporary&#8221; government programs"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Obamacare will not collapse imminently \u2014 or maybe not even ever. But that is not because it is \u201cworking\u201d as a public policy. Countries around the world have carried the husk of their far more socialized health-care systems for generations. Rent control, the minimum wage, and countless other economically ridiculous policies endure because they satisfy the political needs of politicians, bureaucrats, and a whole phylum of remora-like rent-seekers. That\u2019s why Milton Friedman said, \u201cNothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.\u201d He should know, given how it was basically his idea to implement tax-withholding from paychecks as a wartime measure. <\/p>\n<p>You might say that these programs also help real people too. And that is true. But wealth distribution efforts always help <em>someone<\/em>. And those someones become vested interests who demand perpetuation of the status quo. If the federal government implemented a program to give every left-handed person in the country $20,000 a year free and clear (no doubt to compensate for the fact that such people are witches), you can be sure the Left Handed Association of America would work assiduously to protect their entitlement.<\/p>\n<p>Jonah Goldberg, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/g-file\/440850\/obamacare-failed-promises\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Consequences of Overpromising on Obamacare&#8221;, <em>National Review<\/em><\/a>, 2016-10-08.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Obamacare will not collapse imminently \u2014 or maybe not even ever. But that is not because it is \u201cworking\u201d as a public policy. Countries around the world have carried the husk of their far more socialized health-care systems for generations. Rent control, the minimum wage, and countless other economically ridiculous policies endure because they satisfy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,7,41,13],"tags":[937,848],"class_list":["post-36087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-history","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-obamacare","tag-rentseeking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9o3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36087"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36089,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36087\/revisions\/36089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}