>Romney could say something like: “Why has a college education become so expensive that most people feel they need government assistance? As a businessman, I know something about what causes overpriced services. In this case, it is largely due to the Government.<
Paul, all of your suggestions are spot on. Anytime government subsidizes something, be it healthcare, real estate, or college costs, those costs will invariably go up.
Also, when welfare is abundant and simple to obtain, many people will turn to the easiest solution instead of finding the unskilled jobs Obama doesn’t seem to be worrying about providing. Not everyone is capable of keeping a high-skilled job, and Barack Obama is the poster child for that little factoid.
Yes, that's my point. It seems to be particularly true of services. The gov't steps in to "help" ostensibly poorer citizens, and the next thing you know, no one but the rich can afford that service without help!
The gov't screws up the supply - demand equation, and gains control and political power by doing so.
Some forms of subsidies, like Ag subsidies, don't work quite that way with respect to consumer prices, though it's certain they function to hide the true cost of the subsidized item and transfer it to others in the form of taxes. Plus, the factors of political power and control also still apply.
Gov't inflates prices in many other ways, of course. I looked at new and then, of necessity, used car prices recently, and nearly fell over. (Even after a lot of the "deals" and discounts were applied.) You can't tell me that the gov't pouring money in, and Cash for Clunkers taking hundreds of thousands of perfectly good cars off the road, not to mention a host of gov't regulations and requirements, did not artificially run up auto prices.
Not everyone is capable of keeping a high-skilled job, and Barack Obama is the poster child for that little factoid.
Heh, well, the 2nd part of that aside, that is an EXCELLENT point. There are many people, maybe most people, most of them wonderful people, who could not with all the training and education in the world, do the job I do. In turn, I probably could not do the jobs some of them do -- I've taken brief stints on a production line, and it's ok for a few days or so, if need be, but if I had to do it for years, I might come apart at the seams! Other jobs I simply do not have the physical attributes to do. Or, if my job involved lying, I'd fail miserably. Or worse. :-)
There are many jobs in manufacturing, and not necessarily "high tech", that can pay far better than flipping burgers at MacDonalds. Yes, that's even in competition with the Chinese, if the playing field is more nearly level, and if the company is "on its toes". Yet President Obama would, apparently, give up on those manufacturing jobs for people who are well suited to do them. What and where does that leave such a person? (Probably flipping burgers beside the engineer who lost his job too, because Obama won't fight for the *expletive deleted* jobs, and now virtually all the manufacturing of that product, and even many of the engineering & technical jobs, have gone to China. I'm all too familiar with that story...)