With the imminent midterm election and arrival of mail-in ballots at your house, I implore you to vote for a candidate only if you truly believe in the party’s and its candidate’s policies. Please don’t vote for them just because you hate the president, especially if it means bringing back bad policies that degrade our economy, safety, and rule of law. You must keep a level head and vote for the policies that are in your and the country’s best interests.
Today’s Democratic Party is no longer the party of former President Bill Clinton. Unifying and engaging, he espoused a moderate, somewhat-bigger-government brand of free-market capitalism in contrast to the Republicans’ conservative, smaller-government brand. But it was pro-American capitalism on both sides of the aisle. This arguably is no longer the case.
The Democrats’ increasingly influential progressive wing advocates growth-crushing, anti-business, state-control policies, vast new entitlements, an expanded regulatory state, and punitive levels of taxation to ensure “equity and the collective good.” Many support an AI moratorium, decarbonization, decriminalization, defundment of police and immigration enforcement, and a “look-away” approach to government fraud, waste, and inefficiency. Such an approach limits supply while increasing demand for goods and services — which is a highly inflationary combination.
In fact, as I explained in an earlier op-ed, they are gaslighting the public on the “affordability” issue when the reality is that blue states have the nation’s worst affordability, with California worst of all. Just because they keep wielding the word doesn’t mean they have effective solutions for it through more government involvement and regulation. Indeed, the biggest cost burdens on disillusioned young people today are higher education, housing, and healthcare, which also happen to be some of the most heavily regulated industries.
The better test of an affordability agenda is whether the policies they advocate expand the supply of housing, energy, goods, and services faster than they stimulate demand. And as the Wall Street Journal editorial board recently opined, “Americans may choose to vote for Democrats to send a message to President Trump, but expecting daily life to become more affordable under their policies is indulging hope over expensive experience.”
If a political movement truly believes its goals are virtuous — such as protecting the downtrodden and oppressed from the wealthy oppressors — there is no limit to how much power it will seize to achieve its mission. As Adam Smith opined, “Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”
Indeed, the true solution is allowing market forces to work through Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” i.e., self-interest and competition leading to win-win deals (by necessity, for long-term success), supply/demand pricing signals, and a market equilibrium of optimal resource utilization and societal benefit — which government intervention only tends to mess up.
Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Tytler famously said, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.” This is why our country’s founders created a constitutional republic rather than a pure democracy — to protect us from ourselves.
History has proven that the best outcomes arise from a system of smaller, more efficient government (with low regulation and entitlements) focused predominantly on the rule of law, public safety, and national security, and with an unleashed private sector adept at expansionary, profit-seeking, high-ROI capital allocation that encourages citizens to acquire marketable skills, work hard, and invest in their future, leading not just to individual success but ultimately to robust national economic growth, greater supply and demand for goods and services, lower debt, deficits, and inflation, and broad-based prosperity.
SOCIALISM FOR CEOS, INFLATION FOR YOU
So, how could the solution to today’s problems be to double down on bigger and bolder government programs that encourage more non-expansionary, make-work, low-ROI capital allocation, inefficiency, waste, fraud, and suppression of innovators, risk takers, and job creators? It all just leads to less private investment, slower economic growth, and higher public debt, deficits, and inflation, not to mention public sloth, malaise, and misery. Don’t allow yourself to be duped.
Let’s not vote solely based on tribal affiliation or hatred for the president. Try to objectively examine every candidate’s policies and vote for those that are in your and the country’s best interests. To me, this means policies that encourage, incentivize, and reward earnest effort. Policies that embrace the foundational principles of American exceptionalism, self-reliance, capitalism, meritocracy, entrepreneurship, property rights, the rule of law, and the can-do spirit that have created such breathtaking innovation, broad prosperity, and a rising standard of living for all.
Scott Martindale is CEO of Sabrient Systems, an independent equity research firm and registered investment adviser.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
