Leftists see the free market economy as a kind of weed that will always grow back now matter how much they hack away at it — like kudzu. Conservatives see it like a fruit tree to be tended to and nurtured.
The economy reacts to government laws the same way that a computer reacts to software instructions - they respond to what was done, not what was intended ... and this naturally yields “unintended consequences”.
Congress passes “minimim wage” and “living wage” laws intending to provide the working poor with more money ... but which result in increasing unemployment among the formerly working poor.
Congress imposes a luxury tax intending to get more revenue ... and people stop buying luxuries in the US, resulting in less revenue, and killing the luxury businesses (yacht building, jewelry selling, ...).
New Jersey increased its truck taxes intending to get more revenue ... and people stopped buying trucks in New Jersey, resulting in less revenue, and nearly bankrupting the truck dealers in New Jersey.
Congress passed laws to prohibit large contributions to political campaigns, and require candidates to endorse each campaign ad, intending to reduce the impact of money and negative TV ads .... and people invented PACs and SuperPACs, which use unlimited funding for unending negative and misleading TV ads beyond the control of the politicians that they support.
We need to judge government policies, and politicians, by their results, not their intentions.
And we need to start insisting that politicians and bureaucrats begin to remove laws that do not live up to their advertised “intentions”. Every part of the Administrative State should include an Inspector General with an “Office of Deregulation” to listen to citizen complaints and hold hearings to remove regulations.
Similarly the Senate and House should have, for every Committee, a “SubCommittee for DeRegulation”, which listens to citizen complaints, examines legislative history of laws, hold hearings to evaluated promises vs results, and propose the repeal of laws not living up to their promises and intentions. [This includes government programs originally claimed to only cost $X, and wind up costing $5X.]
How about making this a Tea Party issue?