The Palmetto Insider

Hmmm. … Let’s connect the dots.

In 2006, Massachusetts passes massive health care legislation that forces every resident to purchase insurance and also creates public option plan.

Results:

Billion-dollar overruns.

Long waiting periods to see a specialist: “Long wait times in Boston may be driven in part by the healthcare reform initiative that was put in place in Massachusetts in 2006.”

A shortage of primary care physicians.

And very mixed results on access and quality of care.

Not to mention, massive tax increases for middle-class families.

In 2010, Massachusetts voters elect Scott Brown, who campaigned as the 41^st Senate vote that would block ObamaCare.

RomneyCare = ObamaCare = (Tax Increases + Decline in Quality of Care) = Voter Anger

As for real reform, voters in Massachusetts did not so much vote for free-market heath care reform as against the status quo government-run system.

But given that we’ve tried government-run health care, and it’s failed, it’s time to try the free-market alternative.

This is a lesson many American families are beginning to learn. For more on that, see David Goldhill’s profound article in the Atlantic Monthly, “How American Health Care Killed My Father.”

Sixty years ago, South Carolina ranked No. 45 in terms of per capita personal income. Today, we remain the sixth-poorest state in the nation, even though we’ve thrown billions of dollars in tax incentives at companies and spent tens of billions on public education.

Not only have these failed strategies not helped the average South Carolinian, they have actually made things worse by increasing taxes and stifling entrepreneurship.

To help rouse South Carolina from its economic lethargy, the Policy Council is beginning a year-long campaign to promote a new path for free enterprise and economic growth in the Palmetto State.

This effort begins tonight with the release of Unleashing Capitalism, published by the South Carolina Policy Council Education Foundation.

“Our state needs a complete paradigm shift in its thinking and government policies if we’re truly going to compete and create wealth for our citizens,” says Policy Council President Ashley Landess. “Unleashing Capitalism provides a compelling roadmap for why and how to do so.”

The release of the book – edited by noted economists Peter T. Calcagno of the College of Charleston, Joshua C. Hall of Beloit College and Russell S. Sobel of West Virginia University – is the first phase of an ongoing three-part campaign by the Policy Council to promote free enterprise in South Carolina.

The book includes contributions from more than a dozen economists and other experts. Among its findings and recommendations:

• While South Carolina has an overall mid to low tax burden, our tax structure is detrimental to economic growth. For example, South Carolina has the highest manufacturing property tax in the country. Unleashing Capitalism recommends a flatter and simpler tax structure.
• Politically popular policies like “clustering” and targeted “economic development” incentives are discredited by the reports as inefficient and ineffective at generating long-term economic growth.
• The state’s recent spending increases on education have done little to improve educational performance. To reverse this trend and produce real results, the book recommends increasing educational choices and implementing weighted student funding in the public school system.

South Carolina has ranked near the bottom of the nation in economic growth pretty much since the end of the Civil War, but, as Unleashing Capitalism points out, it doesn’t have to be that way.

By embracing the ideas laid out in Unleashing Capitalism, the Palmetto State can open its doors to economic progress unparalleled in state history.

The State paper last week continued its push for comprehensive smoking bans, arguing that cities and towns throughout Lexington and Richland counties should enact smoking prohibitions.  

The State, of course, would like to see the General Assembly institute a statewide ban on workplace smoking.

The paper contends that in addition to protecting workers from secondhand smoke, such a move ”would create a level playing field for businesses by addressing concerns that patrons might leave an establishment in a jurisdiction that bans smoking to spend money at bars, restaurants and other establishments where smoking is allowed.”

So much for the free market and letting patrons decide where they want to spend their hard-earned dollars.

As the Policy Council wrote in The S.C. General Assembly: Best & Worst of 2009, smoking is universally accepted as unhealthy, but what is even more unhealthy is ceding power to the government over such personal matters.  

Using the force of law to restrict a proprietor’s rights to run their business as they see fit violates that individual’s right to decide how their property is to be used.

What the busybodies who push for smoking bans refuse to accept is that the market can decide the issue. 

If a non-smoker doesn’t want to work in an environment where smoking is permitted, an employer’s private property rights shouldn’t be violated to accommodate that worker. While not always the easiest course of action, there are other jobs available for those unhappy with their workplace environment.

If a business owner who allows smoking loses enough talented employees because they don’t want to put up with cigarette smoke, he can either suffer the consequences, install appropriate ventilation equipment to remedy the situation or change his policy.

But the choice should be his, not rammed down his throat by government mandate.

Rather than something as draconian as a smoking ban, why not require businesses to determine their own smoking policies. Establishments can choose whether to be all-smoking, have separate smoking and non-smoking sections, or prohibit smoking.

By requiring a place of business to indicate near its entrance whether it’s a smoking establishment, customers and potential employees would be aware of the environment they’re walking into.

The other difficulty presented by the concept of a smoking ban is that it represents a creeping tyranny.

As the American Spectator pointed out, “Smoking bans have gone from California oddity to standard practice, creeping to ever more absurd extremes. Outdoor bans are increasingly common, extending to wide open beaches, parks, and golf courses. Dedicated cigar bars and tobacco shops are under fire. Even the home, the last refuge for many smokers, is no longer free from the government’s encroachment in some cities.”

Reasonable people may or may not like smoking at a restaurant, bar or place of work, but most probably feel competent to make their own choices without having the government micromanage their lives.

Today would have been Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman’s 97th birthday. The modern economic voice for capitalism and freedom, Friedman died in 2006. On his birthday today, it is an appropriate time to remember Friedman’s lessons as well as his guidance against government intrusion in the marketplace.

In 2002, Ben Bernanke, current chairman of the Federal Reserve, credited Friedman with correctly identifying the Federal Reserve as the leading cause of the Great Depression. Bernanke was referring to research Friedman did almost 40 years prior, pointing to the Fed as a major culprit in causing – and worsening – the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Milton Friedman was the first economist to write a different version of the events of the 1930s, shifting blame away from the “fallacies of the free market.” His book – cowritten with Ana Schwartz – A Monetary History of the United States, outlines the view that the Federal Reserve policies after the stock crash of 1929 negatively impacted the nation’s economy.

From 1929-1933, there was a massive deflation of the money supply – to the tune of 30%. The Federal Reserve was created to have prevented such a catastrophic collapse. With such a high demand for money, Friedman argues the Fed should have increased money supply, which could have helped slow the Depression from the start.

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