Subsidies Destroy Market Pricing

The first rule of economics is the law of supply and demand.  The price of everything in a real free market system is controlled by the consumer. 

When Government subsidizes activities that should be controlled by the free market, they increase the price.  That’s why government subsidies were not allowed in the US Constitution.

The US used tariffs to make the prices of foreign goods more expensive to give US manufacturers a price advantage over foreign goods. This gave US manufacturing a chance to develop. The US learned how to make furniture and every other product that could be made.  This produced competition and gave all manufacturers and inventors the incentive to make better goods than their competitors.  The US government used tariffs to fund its constitutional responsibilities until 1913.

Tax payer funded subsidies appeared in the 1930s with farm subsidies and earlier with public schools and in the 1960s with healthcare and welfare.  Today, government subsidizes almost everything.  Many subsidies are hidden in the Tax Code and everywhere else. These subsidies need to be removed.

Tax dollars should be restricted to those few tasks government can be trusted to do. These are the “enumerated powers” in the US Constitution (as written).

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader