Replies

There's where you lost me, as I imagined you would from your first thread. The answer to counterproductive subsidies is not to establish dueling subsidies. The answer to counterproductive incentives is to eliminate them.

I hear and respect your position--but I believe that the above sentence is a slight misunderstanding.

I do not look on Medicaid, Medicare, etc. as a "subsidy" as such. I understand your point, you want the government to be completely "laissez-faire" with regard to personal issues.

The first step in that direction (in a practical sense) is to replace coercive, or destructive, involvement with less intrusive involvement.

I didn't *necessarily* mean it as subsidizing good behaviour would be an ideal position, or even the final state of things.

You'll notice I recommended a) letting market forces work on supply; and b) the government offering a bounty, which introduces a free-market incentive, with "opt in" by the public, rather than forcing anyone to do things.

In my opinion, there is no other conservative position on this issue. The government should have no interest in my health.

I disagree, for rather complex reasons. I think there is a compelling government interest in *public* health; that is why there are laws on treatment of sewage, laws on cleanliness in restaurants, etc. Might I suggest that another question is how *intrusive* the government's interest in health should be.

One might respond, "Yes, but the government is involved." Well, get them uninvolved. More government is always bad.

More government always poses the *risk* of going bad.

I don't think the country would be better with an infrastructure comprised mainly of privately held toll roads, for example.

I agree that we definitely want less government, and that the government shouldn't be a haven for "do-gooder" "busybodies"--that leads to too much interference in people's lives. But I'm not quite sure where the line between libertarian and conservative is; and my own views have changed over time. I'm not claiming to have all the answers; just that I've stumbled over some of the right questions. At least I hope so.

Thanks for replying, I'd love to hear more from you: and I'm glad that you are raising your tax-chikadees to be self-reliant ! :-)

Cheers!

Indeed, I was generalizing in some of my statements; I tend to broad-brush because I'm always in a hurry to find out what sort of disaster has occured while I didn't have my 2-year-old in sight :-).

I do not look on Medicaid, Medicare, etc. as a "subsidy" as such.

Okay, I'll drop the word rather than argue over it. However, Medicare and Medicaid are systems under which taxpayers are forced to pay for (overwhelmingly) non-taxpayers' medical care, regardless of whether the non-taxpayers live responsibly or idiotically. This leads both to economically irresponsible use of medical care by the recipients, and to hostility on the part of taxpayers.

These systems, along with others that provide money and free services to those who make counterproductive choices in life, are a huge part of our economy. Eliminating them, making people financially responsible for their decisions, would have an enormous positive effect.

I hope to continue this discussion later, if other duties permit. It is an interesting subject, and you are a very reasonable person with whom to exchange conflicting positions :-).