No Choice for You! Or, I smell a Putin!
Monday, January 7th, 2008 By David HansenThe rules politicians play by ought to disqualify them from even pretending they can improve market functioning or grow prosperity or ‘create’ jobs through their laws, rules, regulations and taxes.
The Enquirer reports on how the Democratic and Republican parties in Hamilton have agreed to limit voters choices in major county elections to be held this November. All in an effort to preserve the political status quo.
For any two private companies to collude to limit consumer choice as these parties have done would be a “restraint of trade” sure to earn them a visit from the US Department of Justice or Ohio AG Marc Dann.
When politicos so blithely ignore the principle of America’s free enterprise system that competition delivers a better product for consumers, they forfeit any legitimacy to interfere with the workings of the private economy. At the very least they’ve shown they have no respect for rules the economy plays by.
For good reasons too numerous to mention here, we’ve given the two major parties a kind of exemption from the wide-open competition found in most parts of American life. But this exemption is premised on the two protected parties actually competing between themselves, at least.
