Safe water, like every other necessity, must ultimately be paid for. Bernie Sanders alternatives are fantasy.
In reading the timeline of the terrible corruption of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, there are so many acts of malfeasance, arrogance and stupidity that it is difficult to catch the fundamental, underlying problem. Seriously culpable as the governor of Michigan, the officials in both Flint and the EPA, and others are, the ultimate failing is the idea that every necessity is both deserved and available without a cost. What began the horrible cascade of failures in Flint was a bankrupt city, damaged by another, recently bankrupt city, Detroit.
Clean water is “supposed” to be there. The money to pay for it is “supposed” to be there. The requisite fiscal responsibility is not a “conservative” political ideal, not an inconvenient truth, not a heartless political goal superseding other more important goals such as good schools, social programs and clean air. Fiscal responsibility is not automatic, not available just for the snap of the fingers or the taxing of the rich or the borrowing from whomever. For just exactly why was Detroit water deemed unacceptable to the incompetents in Flint who turned off that spigot? Because Detroit itself needed to overcharge for its water because of its own fiscal irresponsibility. It’s a chain. Move back up that chain of fiscal irresponsibility far enough, and it breaks.
Fiscal failure is a vicious circle. It cannot be fixed by the likes of Bernie Sanders’ spending plans, which totally, unrealistically presume that there is an endless supply of funds somewhere else to cover every need, without a corresponding plan to increase wealth.
Bernie Sanders’ paradise would come crashing down with the same finality as the water supply of Flint because — beyond the incompetence, malfeasance and, perhaps, racism in the Flint saga — somebody forgot that, if you cannot balance the checkbook, there are only two alternatives: cut out, or add in. If you don’t want to cut out the likes of safe water, you need to add in real wealth. Borrowing it or taxing it from somewhere, anywhere, will ultimately exhaust it. That is the bottom line in Flint. There is no endless supply of what is “supposed” to be there without the productivity to pay for it. The preference of pay-out over productivity is the big hole in the nostrums of Bernie Sanders.
To be sure, Sanders is onto something when he points to greed. But greed is a terrible moral problem, not, ultimately, a determinative economic distortion. Its dimensions are far, far from being large enough such that its destruction would pay for the basic necessities we all desire. Preachments against the greedy do not prevent real fiscal disasters and are no substitute for real economic plans. A Bernie Sanders’ presidency would just multiply the Flint, Michigans. Sanders would undermine the ideal of a “public good” because he thinks redistributed wealth can pay for it. Not so. Only increased wealth can.
Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News
