There’s a peculiar correlation you might notice if you take a moment to list everything that’s become “too expensive” in America today: healthcare, housing, education, childcare, prescription drugs. What’s the common denominator? Government fingerprints are all over each of these industries—not lightly dusted, but pressed firmly into every corner and crevice.
The Government Midas Touch: Everything Turns to Gold (Priced)
My family taught me early to maintain healthy skepticism toward government solutions. “When government shows up to help,” my grandfather would say with a wry smile, “check your wallet.” It wasn’t cynicism—it was pattern recognition.
Consider healthcare. Before Medicare and Medicaid, before the labyrinthine regulatory framework, before the ACA’s thousand-page rulebook, medical care was largely affordable. A doctor’s visit didn’t require a financial advisor. The explosion of administrative costs—now accounting for about 34% of healthcare spending—directly correlates with increased government involvement.
Education tells a similar tale. As federal dollars poured into universities, tuition didn’t decrease—it skyrocketed at eight times the rate of inflation. Government “help” created a captive market of desperate students and an administrative bloat that would make even the Pentagon blush.
Housing? Zoning regulations, building codes, environmental impact studies—all well-intentioned perhaps, but collectively creating artificial scarcity. When government restricts supply while subsidizing demand, prices have nowhere to go but up.
The pattern is consistent: centralization leads to limitation, limitation leads to scarcity, scarcity leads to higher prices. The government doesn’t break your leg and hand you a crutch—it breaks everyone’s legs and sells crutches at a premium.
The Whistleblower’s Curse
Perhaps more disturbing than the economic inefficiency is the pattern of truth suppression. The past 25 years reveal a consistent timeline:
- A whistleblower or analyst identifies a government program failure or deception
- They present evidence, often at personal risk
- The establishment labels them conspiracy theorists, cranks, or threats
- Their careers and reputations are systematically dismantled
- Months or years later, mainstream sources reluctantly acknowledge the truth
- The vindicated whistleblower rarely receives restitution or even an apology
From Edward Snowden exposing mass surveillance to early critics of the Iraq War intelligence, from skeptics of pharmaceutical capture of regulators to those questioning COVID response strategies—the pattern holds remarkably consistent.
By the time vindication arrives, careers are destroyed, families strained, and the public has moved on to the next manufactured crisis. Meanwhile, those responsible for the deceptions rarely face consequences. The system protects its own.
The Democratic Implication
In a democracy, we face a particularly troubling dynamic: when elected officials lie and commit ethical or legal violations, they implicate all who voted for them. We become unwitting accomplices to their misdeeds, our tax dollars funding ventures we’d never personally approve.
When politicians launch foreign interventions based on fabricated intelligence, it’s done in our name. When regulatory agencies prioritize industry profit over public safety, that’s our signature on the policy. When civil liberties are eroded for the illusion of security, we supposedly consented through our representatives.
This is the fatal conceit of democratic governance without strict constitutional limits—the presumption that elected officials necessarily represent our interests rather than their own or those of their financial backers.
The Alternative Vision
What would healthcare look like without massive regulatory capture and centralization? Perhaps like LASIK or cosmetic surgery—areas with minimal government involvement that have seen prices decrease while quality improves. Competition works when allowed to function.
What would education look like without federal micromanagement? Perhaps like the innovative models emerging outside traditional structures—apprenticeships, coding bootcamps, and specialized training programs delivering superior results at a fraction of university costs.
Charity and social welfare? Look to mutual aid societies that flourished before government crowded them out—voluntary organizations that provided healthcare, unemployment benefits, and community support without bureaucratic waste or coercion.
The Path Forward
We don’t need to fund the very institutions that created our most expensive problems. We don’t need to empower compulsive liars who view truth-tellers as threats. We don’t need to implicate ourselves in a system that consistently fails to deliver on its promises.
What we need is the courage to imagine alternatives. The humility to acknowledge that centralized solutions rarely account for individual circumstances. The wisdom to recognize that every government “solution” carries unintended consequences that often dwarf the original problem.
Look around. Where do you see genuine innovation, decreasing prices, and improving quality? Invariably, it’s in sectors where government involvement remains minimal.
The next time someone proposes a government solution to an expensive problem, ask yourself: Might government involvement be the very reason this problem exists in the first place?
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