Way back in 2009, in the early days of writing this column, I shared an image that aptly summarizes the bad things that happen when politicians interfere with economic liberty.
The simple message is that more government is almost always the wrong answer.
- Wrong on taxes
- Wrong on money
- Wrong on trade
- Wrong on red tape
- Wrong on intervention
- Wrong on health
Today, we’re going to look at an example of how government spending is the wrong answer.
Here are some excerpts from a story in the Washington Post, but the headline tells you everything you need to know.
The offer to military veterans left unemployed by the coronavirus pandemic was tantalizing: A year of online courses courtesy of the federal government. Graduates would be set up for good jobs in high-demand fields… Schedules were disorganized and courses did not follow a set syllabus.
School-provided laptops couldn’t run critical software. And during long stretches of scheduled class time, students were left without instruction… The disarray…is the most painful example of broader problems with the $386 million Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program, or VRRAP. …nearly 90 schools have had their approvals yanked, according to VA officials, including several that were actively serving about 100 veterans. …only about 6,800 veterans had enrolled in the program, far fewer than the 17,250 Congress created it to serve, the agency said; just 397 had landed new jobs.
Some of you may be tempted to conclude that the program was a success since it did result in 397 jobs.
Others will conclude it was a failure since the budget was $386 million, implying each job cost taxpayers nearly $1 million.
I sympathize with the second conclusion, of course, but here are two questions that need to be answered.
- How many of those 6,800 veterans would have landed new jobs if they didn’t participate in the program?
- How much economic activity would have been generated if the $386 million was left in the private sector?
Suffice to say, the answers to those questions would show more jobs and more prosperity if the program was never created.
Incidentally, the story, authored by Lisa Rein and Yeganeh Torbati, includes this depressing bit of information.
The troubles with VRRAP were achingly predictable: A similar program rolled out in 2012 — the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program, or VRAP — also failed to attract students and was widely regarded as a flop.
In other words, it was already known that this specific type of program would be a flop.
Heck, there are decades of evidence that all types of government job-training programs are a failure.
So why did Congress approve this scheme?
Unfortunately, the story only tells us that this program was part of Biden’s failed $1.9 trillion stimulus boondoggle, but it does not tell us which politicians on Capitol Hill pushed the plan.
I’m sure we would find those politicians got a lot of campaign contributions from that the interest groups that financially benefited the boondoggle.
All part of Washington’s corrupt version of recycling.
P.S. Since today’s column highlighted how a headline can have a powerful message, here are some previous headlines that caught my attention.
International Liberty 
[…] Not that any of us should have been surprised. […]
[…] Not that any of us should have been surprised. […]
There is no simple standard. For example, can you answer the hypothetical I posed to you with a simple standard? There isn’t even a complex standard. We do the best we can with the set of morals we live by. And even then, there will be exceptions. Utilitarian justice works… sometimes. Rawlsian justice works… sometimes. Even hunter-gatherer justice works… sometimes. There are no absolutes.
Oh… and don’t forget about those errors of mine I had hoped you would point out.
Simple or complex, what is the standard you use?
Richard, I don’t know if you have young children or not, but let’s assume you do and I ask you, “What is your standard for deciding when to send them off to their room for 10 minutes of quiet time because of their misbehavior?” How would you answer that? If you say, “when they have stepped over the line of what is permissible,” that simply begs the question, “What is that line?” You are caught in an endless circle, a completely foolish enterprise. And you would pretend to tell me that there are flaws in my logic? LOL!
By the way, have you found some time yet to point out to me even a few of my errors?
There is no simple standard, which is what you seem to be looking for. That is for simple minds. I gave what I thought was a nuanced argument. If you couldn’t see the standard implied by all that, the loss is yours. Utilitarianism tried to set a simple standard and failed. That is not to say that utilitarianism hasn’t contributed to moral philosophy, but it certainly hasn’t provided any final word for us.
We are social animals who make do as best we can. There is no “standard” out there by which to judge all behavior. At least none that has been discovered so far.
Your question is as simple minded as asking someone to give the standard for determining the best baseball player. It is because there is no such simple standard that the argument of who’s the best player will go on forever. Now maybe in some less-complex sports there might be such a standard, but not in baseball and certainly not in morality.
phkershner, just answer the question directly—if you can. Perhaps you have no standard. If that’s true, then simply explain such.
Richard, you write: “I must say that your arguments contain so many factual errors and logical mistakes that it would take a long explanation to point them out. Even if I had the time, I doubt facts would change your mind.”
For a person worried about time, I’m surprised you would take time to provide us with absolutely nothing. Why don’t you start by pointing out one factual error? When you find the time, that is.
And by the way, my mind has often been changed by facts. I’ll just give you one example. I used to favor the death penalty. Now I oppose it. Oh, what the heck. I’ll give you another example. I used to be in favor of the war on drugs. Now I oppose it. In both cases, facts drove me to change my mind.
Richard, it is generaly not mine alone to decide, but rather a societal compact. Can the policeman kill the man to stop him from killing a child? Almost all would say “Yes.” Can a policeman kill a man to stop him from killing a cat? Almost all would say “No.”
Harry Truman did not make his decision to drop the atomic bombs in isolation, but rather in counsel with others. I think most people today think that, despite the horrible effects of those bombs, they probably saved far more lives than they cost (both Japanese and Allied).
You might say the policeman above was acting as an individual, but really not. He was drawing on the collected wisdom of our society, imperfect as it may be.
Of course, there are times when an indiviudal takes an action he thinks justified only to find himself in court and found guilty of acting unjustly. And so we’ve come full circle. We’re back to that societal comapct from which we began.
phkershner, I must say that your arguments contain so many factual errors and logical mistakes that it would take a long explanation to point them out. Even if I had the time, I doubt facts would change your mind.
Explain to me, phkershner, by what standard do you decide when the ends justify the means is acceptable.
JMW, I don’t misinterpret your lack of addressing my specific pro-government examples as a sign of my superiority. I don’t even know you. But your overarchcing comments are simply too vague to be an adequate response. This is a case of NIMBY. You couldn’t tell me which of the many programs I mentioned you would like to give up. Do you no longer want the meat you buy to be inspected?
You make overarching comments about corruption in politics, but have nothing to say about corruption in big business (Boeing 737 MAX among countless others).
Regarding WWII, there actually were people opposed to us fighting in the war, even after Pearl Harbor. There are libertarians who believe that any taxation is theft (that pretty much rules out a mlitary). And there were people not of a libertarian bent opposed to us fighting in any war (pacifists). I’m sure many of those pacifists are supporters of small government. So, no, my comment was not idiotic.
I really don’t think we are so far apart as these posts might suggest. As a centrist, I don’t want to see government any bigger than necessary. I guess the rub comes down to what is necessary. I think granting blacks their civil rights in the 1960s was necessary (among my many other examples).
An aside: What I really grow weary of is Dan Mitchell repeatedly talking about how the average American is wealthier than the average European. I’m sure you’ve seen the graph. But that piece of data is skewed by the fact that we have so many more extraordinarily wealthy people. A more useful comparison would use median rather than mean. I wonder if Dan has the guts to do that.
Anonymous, if you don’t believe that the ends of crushing Nazi Germany and Imperialistic Japan did not justify the means, then I feel sorry for you. Would you rather have seen one or both of those evil regimes ruling the world? I am not saying that the ends always justify the means. But in the case I mentioned they certainly did.
PHK,
Don’t misinterpret my lack of addressing your specific pro-government examples as a sign of your superiority. One, I addressed it well enough with my overarching comments and two, I simply have no desire to spend as much time on this as you do. Some of your points are good and valid, but they do not change my overall message.
Although I will say your point that without ‘big govt’ we’d be speaking Japanese or German is idiotic. No one claims we should have zero govt, and I’ve never heard any advocate of small govt claim we should not have fought WWII. You are straining too much.
Assuming that is true, which I don’t, I think what you are saying is that the ends justify the means.
Anonymous,
What you call “legalized theft” is the reason we are writing in English and not in German or Japanese.
JMW, when did I say I was the only apologist for bigger government?
From Merriam Webster definition of “evil”: “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct” and “causing harm : PERNICIOUS.” I’m not going to do a check of all of Dan’s past posts to see whether he has used the word “evil” itself. But based on the MW definition, he has certainly defined people as evil.
In fact you do also. Referring to people in government, you write, “Things get done for political reasons (votes and campaign cash) as much as what’s good for society.”
Do you seriously deny that things in private business get done for the bottom line, for profits, and almost unebelievable salaries for CEOs, as much as what’s good for society? Do you seriously deny that private business will cut corners to save money even at the expense of the safety of the public? That’s one very good reason for government oversight.
I am somewhat inclined to agree with you when you write: “Govt policy is usually inefficient, overly politicized, and sometimes even harmful. Govt makes more mistakes than private markets, and more importantly, is structurally less able to change course and correct mistakes.” I would not say “usually” and I would add that private business is also sometimes harmful. I have given many examples of the benefits of government over the last couple posts and you really haven’t responded to them directly. You respond in vague generalities.
I can’t repeat them all here, but would you want to drive over a bridge not regulated by the government, purchase meat not regulated by the government, or live in the smog of LA prior to its smog being greatly reduced by government decrees on auto emissions?
Do you enjoy our interestate system and national parks?
Do you realize that were it not for the greatest expansion in big government ever we would be corresponding in German (or Japanese)?
Would private business in the 1960s have restored to black people the rights they had long been denied?
I generally favor smaller government when possible. But to parallel Churchil, sometimes big government is the worst solution except for all others tried.
You’re right that government operates using the threat of force. But they also operate under the threat of being thrown out of office.
“In 1913, according to the National Safety Council, 33.38 people died for every 10,000 vehicles on the road. In 2020, the death rate was 1.53 per 10,000 vehicles, a 95% improvement…
“A host of government actions, including seat belt laws, stricter drunk driving measures and requirements for more crash-resistant vehicles, are largely responsible for the improvement, which continued well into the 21st century.” This comes from the article: “Six Big Government Success Stories of the Last Two Decades:
Often, it’s not what government has accomplished that’s significant, but what it has prevented from happening.” (easily Googled if you want to read the rest of the success stories they give)
Few people question that Social Security and Medicare have saved countless elderly people from poverty.
You’re right that government is not a shining paragon of morality. But neither is private business. And for the record, I am not a leftist. I am a centrist.
PHK, do you believe you are the only apologist in favor of bigger government??? But here are a few points.
To my knowledge Dan has never said people in government are more evil. That’s not really the point. It’s the system. People in govt lack good incentives and good info about particular areas. Things get done for political reasons (votes and campaign cash) as much as what’s good for society.
As for govt doing some good, it would be nigh impossible for government to spend $7 trillion dollars and enact thousands of regulations and have none of it do ANY good. That’s not really the point. The question is, are we better off if govt gets increasingly larger? I say no. Govt policy is usually inefficient, overly politicized, and sometimes even harmful. Govt makes more mistakes than private markets, and more importantly, is structurally less able to change course and correct mistakes.
And, of course, govt often operates using the threat of force. Considering its use of force and its ineffective results, govt is not the shining paragon of morality some leftists imagine.
How can legalized theft benefit society?
John Michael Wagner, if you want to think that your sarcasm is an argument, when in a previous post recently I gave many examples of what govenment does well (and you chose to ignore), then I am afraid you are in over your head.
Try telling my auto mechanic that Obamacare did no good. Sadly, before Obamacare came into existence, his wife contracted cancer. After years of paying for private medical insurance they were suddenly dropped when she was diagnosed. The entire bill for her six-digit care ended in his lap. That wouldn’t have happened had Obamacare been in affect. His story is just one of many across the country. You think all the evil people are in government. Well, there are plenty of them in private business as well.
This is not an attempt to look at Obamacare through rose-colored glasses. It had serious problems. But to fail to credit its successes (which made it very popular with the American people) makes one wonder about your intellectual honesty.
[…] Government Inefficiency, Captured in a Headline […]
Most people are authoritarians and need to believe that the answer to all problems is always more government and/or more money.
Yeah, but most don’t last long and the contractor who contributed the cash to get the guy elected who awarded the contract will have to rebuild it — after another contribution.
But government occasionally builds a nice road, so that makes it beneficial overall, right??? 😉
This headline is almost as good at the school failure in one graph. Love it.
[…] Government Inefficiency, Captured in a Headline — International Liberty […]