Feed on
Posts
Comments

Weekend Thought

Shouldn’t global warming activists be supporters of smaller, transparent government? After all, one of the “problems” with our CO2 emissions is that we do not see them. We do not see them literally, since CO2 is colorless.  I bet if we had a trail of pink smoke following us, people would be much more cognizant of it. We do not see them very much economically either – as the price of CO2 emissions right now “seems” to be below the expected damage that they cause. The point of climate policy is to make us see them.

But the same is true of government. While we surely “see” our current tax bills, very few of us have a sound grasp of what future spending obligations may entail for future taxes. What’s worse is that much of the actual cost of government is hidden via various regulations and mandates, that cost us in a direct and indirect way (more expensive or non-existence products or services for example, as well as the annoyance of compliance). There are a zillion other concealed costs of government – even the amount of taxes we pay is a mystery to people due to the complexity and myriad places we pay taxes. If people “saw” the impact of government, just as if they “saw” the impact of CO2 emissions, would they not want to take steps to reduce it?

One Response to “Weekend Thought”

  1. cmprostreet says:

    I believe many of the activists you refer to would instinctively believe that the /good/ government does should be made more visible so that people would want to take steps to increase it.

    This seems to be what they currently do, while simultaneously attempting to point out the less visible “evils” of corporations, capitalism, individual choice, and everything that would reduce their excuses to substitute their choices over the autonomy of others.

Leave a Reply