The US-led attack of Syria came at a steep price. The cost of just the missiles was $119 million; the cost of what it took to be able to launch the strike is unknown, but we would expect the adder to be fairly significant. And it got some people thinking: how might the funds have been better spent on less destructive and more productive purposes? Specifically, people have been pointing to the disaster in Flint, Michigan as a much better candidate for government spending over yet another foreign policy blunder.
Without realizing it, these people are making the case for why the government is not equipped to manage how people’s money is spent. If given the choice, I would bet that most people would choose to replace the lead pipes that are poisoning the people of Flint over attacking Syria. And yes, taxation is wrong and should be abolished, but we can make ethical judgments beyond that. It is certainly worse to use tax funds for killing than to use it for providing clean water to people that have been promised by the government to be taken care of.
Yet it always seems like the government would rather drop bombs than take care of issues at home that have direct effects on its citizens. So why should we trust them to take our money and then spend it on our behalf without much an ability to opt out? I would trust individuals more to offer the fruits of their labor to better purposes than I would to bureaucrats and politicians who know no real accountability for their actions.
We should take it a step further. We shouldn’t be talking about how people can get more control over how their taxes are spent, we should be talking about how the government is making people miss out on huge investment opportunities. As the state literally blows up the money of its subjects, the people of Flint, Michigan are struggling to deal with the problem of poisoned water. Access to clean, drinkable water is of huge to concern to literally every human that has ever lived, so there is a considerable market demand for it in Flint. It doesn’t take much to see how a project to provide clean water would be a worthy investment, but since the government has determined that it is a public utility, it blocks the public (how ironic) from gaining access to such lucrative opportunities.
Having the state attempt to centrally plan on our behalf is a losing proposition. It’s not just because they pick the wrong projects but because they prevent individuals from opportunities grow their wealth by serving the needs of their neighbors.
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