Here’s a letter to 1010 WINS Radio in New York City:
You reported during today’s 11:00am hour that citizens of Utah are upset that the number of wild horses now being rounded up by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is too few to protect the environment. In response, the BLM explains that its budget is too tight to justify spending additional sums to round up more horses.
An easy solution is available: politicians can simply declare that additional expenditures on horse round-ups are worthwhile. After all, President Obama teaches us that government can make additional expenditures by businesses on employing low-skilled workers worthwhile simply by raising the minimum wage (that is, by government declaring that all low-skilled workers are now worth whatever wage government declares these workers to be worth). In light of this “Progressive” economics lesson, therefore, there’s every reason to believe that government can make additional expenditures by the BLM on rounding-up more horses worthwhile simply by declaring that these additional expenditures are worthwhile. It’s really quite simple!
So let’s have no more ‘neigh’-saying by those who deny that government can use incantations to miraculously raise the market values of whatever economic activities government wishes to raise.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
