Selective Economic Perception

You see, Debbie Stabenow really does get it. Sure, she tries hard to hide behind that nearly unpenetrable shroud of negative economic wherewithall, but when it comes to embracing sound economic principles on issues that she truly believes in, the January centerfold of Michigan's Garish Lipstick Magazine hits this one out of the proverbial park.

If you want more of something, reward it. If you want less of something, discourage the behavior (a novel concept to parents of juvenile hall children nationwide.)

Raise the cost of hauling commercial waste into Michigan, she says, and you will get less trash. On this score she is correct. Michigan's low cost for trash importation makes it a Mecca for industrial and commerical waste from Canada and surrounding states. Raise the charge per ton and you will get fewer tons.

Bingo. See how easy that was?

The remarkable thing is not that Stabenow actually understands this concept in its most simplified form, but that she refuses to acknowledge the impact of this basic principle when it is applied to other broad based democrat strategies that she supports.

Stabenow is an all-in supporter of national health care (particularly single-payer,) tighter regulations on cheap energy generation, and more restrictive product standards on Michigan's largest industry. Her influence (when combined with the usual big-government solutions crowd) has helped to push the country and her state toward her main political goals all the while seeming to be incapable of understanding the overall impact of her influence.

If you want less health care available to the masses...increase its regulatory cost. If you want less energy available to cars and big rigs, make it brutally painful at the pump. If you want to cripple an industry that relies on consumers to pay the sticker price...make it harder for the auto industry to provide a product that its customers can afford.

As health care costs rise, energy costs rise, and as consumers find themselves pushed farther behind the financial eight ball, Stabenow and her ilk will march onward with legislation (and support of regulation where legislation cannot be achieved) designed to push the economy into Utopia--one certainly containing less trash, but one that few people can afford to live in.