Poor have reason to fear government ‘help’

WHEN President Trump unveiled his budget proposal, liberal interest groups predictably wailed about cuts harming the poor. Whether those claims are accurate is a topic for another day. The more important question: Is it really a bad thing if there’s less government intrusion in the lives of the poor and the private economy in general? A report from the conservative Heritage Foundation makes a good case that such a shift would benefit the poor.

In “Big Government Policies that Hurt the Poor and How to Address Them,” Daren Bakst and Patrick Tyrrell write, “The reality is that, in many cases, government policy can make it more difficult for those striving to make ends meet.”

They discuss nearly two dozen government policies “that particularly hurt the poor.” For example, Bakst and Tyrrell point to a wide range of climate change regulations imposed during the Obama administration, including those that basically prohibited construction of new coal-fired power plants and forced the shuttering of older plants.

“A Heritage Foundation analysis found that, as a result of the Obama Administration’s climate policies, household electricity expenditures could increase between 13 percent and 20 percent, hitting America’s poorest households hardest,” Bakst and Tyrrell write.

At the same time, the impact of those policies on global warming, even accepting advocates’ rosy projections, “is negligible.”

Government regulations regarding energy and water-use efficiency for many common household appliances increase the up-front cost of those appliances. When the federal government calculates the costs and benefits of those regulations, Bakst and Tyrrell note, the models “do not reflect actual consumer behavior, but best describe the benefits to households making $160,844 or more …”

Fuel standards that mandate use of ethanol blends harm the poor because ethanol’s “energy content is only two-thirds the energy content of petroleumbased gasoline.” Thus, people must buy more fuel to travel the same distance, increasing costs. At the same time, the ethanol mandate is credited with diverting corn and soybeans from food supply to fuel usage, which indirectly raises food expenses.

The federal sugar program uses price supports and marketing allotments to artificially limit sugar supplies and increases consumer costs by as much as $3.7 billion per year.

Another federal law allows the government to impose volume controls on production of certain fruits and vegetables. Thus, government intentionally limits “the supply of commodities, thereby driving up food prices and disproportionately harming the poor.”

Similarly, occupational licensing restrictions “cost millions of jobs nationwide and raise consumer expenses by as much as $203 billion per year. The licensing process usually requires time and money, even where there is no training involved.” The list goes on and on. “If the government would just get out of the way by curtailing cronyism, eliminating unnecessary regulations, and eliminating other government interventions that needlessly drive up prices, those in need would have a better chance to succeed,” Bakst and Tyrrell write.

The most-feared words in the English language have long been, “I’m from the government. I’m here to help.” Bakst and Tyrrell show why this is especially true for the working poor.