Government sucks

'Why are you a conservative?' I get asked this question  many times. Its usually phrased "Aren't you to young to be a conservative?" The short answer is no. The rest of this post will be giving the long answer.

Government sucks.

A good friend of mine once asked me 'why am I against taxes? Why not just elect representatives who would do what you want?' My answer is that the government has yet to prove its efficacy in ANYTHING. Everything that the government is in control of, has failed, while everything that the government has let go of, succeeds with flying colors. Speaking of flying colors, airline regulations were in place until 1978. Up until that point, service was terrible, prices were high, and safety was nonexistent. With the advent of airline deregulation all of that changed. The airplanes were more punctual, the prices fell to 40% (in real dollars) of what it was preceding airline regulation, and the number of fatal accidents per year fell by almost half [1]

This story is by no means atypical. For example the telephone industry [2] also had similar increases in quality and decreases in pricing when the government removed regulation.

Allow me to preempt the very obvious question, what about finance? Yes I admit, that with the deregulation of the finance system, companies were more likely to invest in things they had no business investing in, but that is not the issue as I see it. If they were stupid enough to invest in terrible assets, then why don't we let them face the repercussions of their actions? Too big to fail is unconvincing at best. I am a fan of capitalism, not big business, and a major part of capitalism is that those who do stupid things are kicked out of the market. The fact that the government's deregulation made it easier to be stupid, has nothing to do with the merits of the government.

Actually, I can use this argument to even help my case. If you were to look at the instigators of this crash, subprime mortgages, you would realize what REALLY started this. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, unlike all other companies subjected to the free market, are government sponsored enterprises who's job was to give loans to the less fortunate, aka subprime loans. Republicans argued to weaken the amount of government power of this organization, but were accused of unfair play by democrats.

Here's a little mind experiment for you. Remember the last time you stood in a really long line (...that wasn't in Disney)?  Chances are it was in a government owned building. The DMV and the post office are all examples of inefficiencies instituted by the government. The post office is unable to economically support itself [3] and the DMV's lines are miserably wrong.

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Here's a challenge to anybody out there. Name one successful government program. One program that achieved the goal it set, and is not insolvent.