Friday, February 24, 2006

Government Grocers

Neal Boortz puts it in the simplest terms.

Imagine government grocery stores. Groceries are essential, aren't they? Come on, you have to eat! So let's say that about 100 years ago someone came up with the brilliant idea of establishing a system of government-run grocery stores. To make sure that every American got enough to eat, local governments created a nutrition tax. All property owners had to pay a nutrition tax every year amounting to thousands of dollars. Under this great government plan you are assigned to a grocery store when you move into a neighborhood. Every year the local government creates a credit for you at this grocery store; an account in your name. When you want to buy groceries you have to go to this store and no other. Would your assigned grocery store feel any pressure to make sure that you get the best quality foods? Would this grocery store work hard to determine what its customers want? Would you be assured of the latest technology and products? The answer to all of these questions is, of course, no! Why would they? What do they have to fear? Competition? There IS no competition! The citizen's money is taken away from him by force and put into an account at one particular grocery store, and no other store. If you want to go to a private, non-government-operated grocery store you are going to have to dig into your own pockets and spend even more money! You're trapped, and the grocery store managers and employees know it. There is no real need to deliver a quality shopping experience or the best products. Instead of focusing on their customers these managers and employees focus on getting even more money and benefits from the government.

Oh .. and government grocery store clerks would be focusing on one more thing ... preventing competition. Every once in a while someone is going to step forward with a rather radical idea. Someone is going to suggest that people be given vouchers equal to the amount they pay in grocery taxes so that they, like their rich neighbors, can go shop at those private grocery stores where fresher food and a wider variety of products are available! As soon as this suggestion is made the managers and employees of the government grocery stores are going to erupt into howls of anguish. They will say that this is all a plot to destroy public grocery stores. They will wail that groceries are a necessity and that there should not be any competition in the selling of those groceries. They will watch every politician like a hawk, making sure that none of them even utter so much as a hint that they might be willing to consider the idea of grocery vouchers, and they'll build a government employee union that is so strong and so far-reaching that only the boldest of politicians would dare to cross that line.

Of course you realize he's actually talking about government schools, don't you?

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