What's At Stake: Private Choice

"There is a whole school of economics called "Public Choice".... Public Choice economics demonstrates that government is populated by self-interested utility maximizers just as are other sectors of the economy, and, as Thomas Sowell has observed, the primary self-interest of politicians is to get reelected. That is Job One." (Source)

Americans have made the mistake of assuming that the government (and our elected officials) actually have our best interests at heart and that we can trust them to take care of us. What we are handing over is our freedom and liberty, and we will not be "happy" or impressed with government solutions (nor can we afford them): health care, education, retirement, etc.

It is "Public Choice vs. Private Choice", and what we lose in the equation is the very heart of the American Dream. How bitterly ironic is it that the party of "choice" is the very party ramming socialist policy down our throats that will result in the death of private choice. What are we buying into when we give the government power to impose public choice? Public choice is when the government chooses FOR you. To make the assumption that government as a bloated bureaucratic body of corrupt officials acting in their own self-interest will (by some miracle) act in your best interests is incredibly naive.

Caroline Baum gives us food for thought on what happens when the government becomes too powerful and over-reaches itself:

"Government is nothing more than a collection of individuals acting in their own -- yes, their own -- self-interest, in much the same way that Wall Street does. The only difference, according to advocates of public choice theory, is that governments make public, not private, choices: They choose for us, in other words. And we aren’t free to reject those choices.

Whereas transactions in the private sector are voluntary, the government coerces us (threat of imprisonment) to pay for goods and services via taxes." (Source)

Wow. "And we aren't free to reject those choices." What all this spending legislation means is the permanent creation of more and more bureaucracy that will -- in the guise of trying to help and save us, claiming to have our best interests at heart, but actually grasping for wealth and power -- reduce our freedom and our choices. Private choice is what this country is founded upon. Private choice is not just eroded by the Obama administration and Congress's recent legislation, its obliterated.