Of Slippery Slopes And Obamacare's True Cost

The other day I heard Montreal city councilor Alan de Souza  - a rmember of Gerald Tremblay's party Union Montreal  - defend Quebec's decision to increase taxes with a "it won't put people in the poor house" rationale. It upset me quite a bit. Because it won't allegedly put us in the "poor house" is not a proper justification to raise taxes. After all, what's two cents here and three cents there? Just be glad we're not doing what we really want to do!

Taxes are inherently inefficient and contribute to the erosion of wealth. Taxes expropriated to "balance books" distorted by government policy is something I find hard to support. Which leads me to this article in Le Quebecois Libre.

On Obamacare:

From a libertarian perspective, President Obama’s recent triumph in the healthcare reform fight was not cause for celebration. Libertarians object to the legislation’s guiding philosophy, neatly captured by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that healthcare is “a right and not a privilege.” But a right to be free from something merely requires others to leave you be; a right to something requires others to act and to pay for the cost. The basis of libertarianism is that no one is allowed to tell competent adults what to do, or to take their property.


This argument is unlikely to win converts, though. Ours is clearly a society in which the idea that government is entitled to tax and spend has widespread legitimacy. In practical terms, some believe that state-run medicine is too expensive, even if moral. Others claim that public healthcare reduces costs by eliminating administrative and marketing overhead and the need to turn a profit.

On Slippery Slopes:

Slippery slopes can be good things. Slippery slopes brought us desegregation, secularism, legalized abortion and gay marriage. Good things all, in my view. But even if you disagree, the point is that policy is not static. Like a shark, it is forever in motion. Sometimes it moves in directions you like, sometimes not. Sometimes it moves in your favoured direction and reaches your ideal destination—only, to your horror, to continue along its way, by which point your feckless cries of “Too much!” go unheeded.