Unintended Consequences of Government Actions

Replay from June 25, 2009

The foresight of our Congressional Legislators is near zero. It appears that they seldom see or acknowledge the long term results of their political actions. The most recent example involved the sub-prime mortgage disaster that sent our economy into a nosedive. Now there is the health care debacle.


$$$ State of Illinois raised state sales tax and state income tax. Spending cuts not an option.

Consequences: People and business planning to leave Illinois. Surrounding states happy.


$$$ Democrat sponsored ObamaCare to require individual and family insurance coverage for everyone including children up to age 26 or pay a fine. Coverage for pre-existing conditions mandated.

Consequences: Doctors plan to leave their profession. PAs likely to fill the void. Insurance companies stop offering insurance coverage for children. No insurance company can afford stay in business by offering coverage for pre-existing conditions. Quality of care to drop to levels unseen in the USA in over 100 years.


$$$ Democrat legislators in Congress decided that people who could not afford homes should be given mortgage without regard to their ability to pay. Enforced by threat of government retribution.

Consequences: The great housing collapse of 2009 has been attributed directly to a program started by President Jimmy Carter. It was revived and continued by President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama.


$$$ Democrats are working through plans to offer universal health care for all people in the USA. This form of socialized medicine is likely to happen without regard to citizenship.

Consequences: Waiting list will be created for diagnosis and treatment. More assistants, rather than doctors, will take on the role of diagnosis and treatment. Health care for seniors in particular will become rationed and even denied based on age. Doctors who can are likely to move their practices to friendly nations like The Bahamas and elsewhere. Internationals who previously came to the USA for treatment because of inadequate care in their home nations, are likely to travel elsewhere to received good health care.


$$$ The State of California is raising taxes to fund their socialist agenda.

Consequences: People and businesses are leaving California to pursue their dreams and opportunities in other states. In the face of spiraling debt, they still prefer to raise taxes rather than cut spending.


$$$ A California city, like the auto industry, gave their employees massive benefits and age 55 full retirement pensions.

Consequences: Their employee pension plan went broke. Who won that bargaining session. Nothing learned.


$$$ Democrat legislators in the state of New Jersey [around 2007] put a heavy luxury tax on their boat industry.

Consequences: The luxury boat industry left New Jersey for states with lower tax rates. Jobs were lost along with that tax revenue.


$$$ Democrat legislators in Congress decided to provide charitable government stipends to single moms. This Great Society initiative promoted by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s has not yet stopped expanding.

Consequences: Intact families separated because that increased the benefits received from the government. This Great Society initiative, instead of helping people, actually broke up families. It is responsible for fewer marriages, more divorces, more single moms and more fatherless children. Who are the dominant trouble- makers in school and who dominates the inmate population – the offspring in single parent homes.


$$$ Democrat legislators in Congress established benefit programs for mothers with children who were previously labeled as retarded.

Consequences: Mothers now seek out retarded fathers who can give them more retarded children because it pays well.


$$$ Schools have gone out of their way to eliminate competition for good grades and honors [i.e., no grades], in testing, in scholarship and even in physical education activities.

Consequences: The long term consequences of “no competition” is yet to be determined.


$$$ Obama Administrators have decreed that enemy terrorist combatants will be read US Miranda Rights on the battlefield.

Consequences: Less information about the enemy strategies and positions will be gained from captured terrorists. Possibly, fewer enemy terrorists will survive battlefield capture as they try to escape in a threatening manner.


$$$ Congress wants to release questionable photos that Middle East web sites will post to generate more and more hatred toward the USA.

Consequences: More young American soldiers, both Democrat and Republican, will be put in harm’s way. ... the right jack