Guarantee Jobs to Free the Free Market

One of my key political beliefs is that cheap is better than free!

You see we hear politicians promise “free” stuff, but what they’re really promising is a government monopoly, but monopolies are never good, whether they be public or private because they lead to rising costs and diminishing quality.

This is why I not only differ with the socialist-left, but also the libertarian-right because the free market can lead to the consolidation of power too, but instead of being in a few government officials hands it’ll be in a few private individuals hands, which is preferable to the former because they won't have a trillion-dollar military behind them, but it’s still far from ideal because once these corporate monopolies become entrenched they can be very difficult to break up. To break up a corporate monopoly, you either need to embrace your inner Teddy Roosevelt, increase taxes on them to level the playing field, or hope some new technology that could be 10, 50, 100 years away will be capable of dislodging them.

So I believe rather than the government trying to make things “free” by taking over the market it should make things “cheap” by growing the market.

Using this chart, we can see Americans spend the most amount of money on housing, transportation, food, healthcare, and education…

So I think the central question we should be asking ourselves is, “How can we reduce costs in these areas so Americans can have more disposable income?”

And don't get it twisted... making things cheaper is not an ideological purity test. There are proposals on the left and on the right that can help reduce costs.

For example, a “public option” in housing, transportation, food, healthcare, and education could help spur competition and therefore reduce costs and increase quality. Most conservatives support a “public option” for K - 12 education, aka vouchers. Most conservatives support a “public option” for transportation, i.e. trains, buses, and sidewalks. But the problem with a “public option” is that the government is not operating on the same market based incentives as the rest of the competition, which means a “public option” can be sabotaged by conservatives who want to make sure it’s underfunded so they can say, “See! I told you it would be bad!” or conversely it could be so well-funded that private companies couldn’t compete to the point where the “public option” overtime would turn into a government monopoly, which is what a lot of Democrats openly hope for and believe will happen when it comes to healthcare, i.e. Pete Buttigieg saying in the debates that his “public option” would eventually become medicare-for-all because everyone would want it. But personally, I believe if there is to be a “public option” then it should be done at the state level, i.e. Romneycare in Massachusetts.

Overall though, and this is what makes me more conservative in political philosophy, the evidence seems clear that the way to make things cheaper is by creating a largely free market. When you look at the least regulated parts of our economy you see the most amount of competition, higher innovation, lower costs, and higher quality…

Industries in red have some level of regulatory control, while industries in blue have the least. According to Mark J. Perry, who serves as a scholar at AEI and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan's Flint campus, this chart demonstrates the negatives of government controlled industries.

Just imagine if we treated healthcare like electronics! There would be so much more innovation in the industry! Billions of lives would be saved as there’d be so many more vaccines, cures, and doctors. Prices would dramatically come down as consumers would be much more price conscious. Quality would go up as consumers would have much more choice and look at their doctors Yelp reviews with the same critical eye they bring to buying a hamburger. No more paying $1,000 for a CT scan. After all guys, socialists love capitalist doctors… for themselves!

And imagine if the government stopped giving 18-year-olds $200,000 in unforgivable loans! Colleges would have to drop their tuition since no one would be able to afford it anymore. The price of colleges would drop down to 1980s levels when there was less government intrusion and perhaps even lower as there are many more colleges and online options today.

And you know what, the vast majority of Democrats agree with me! They acknowledge that if we made these markets freer then prices would come down (again, the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that this would be the case), but then here is what Democrats say to me, “But what about the poor? Even if prices come down they still couldn’t afford it. That’s not fair! College and healthcare are a human right!"

(should we guarantee jobs, what is a jobs guarantee, do republicans support guaranteed jobs, will republicans pass a jobs guarantee)