Freebies - Really?

Promising “free stuff” is the tactic of numerous candidates hoping to become the next president of the United States. But how free are the goods and services they are promoting? We recently discussed Venezuela. The promises of "free" proved to be highly costly there.

It isn’t as though we don’t already support some “free” goods and services in the U.S. We have “free” public education, for instance. But did you know, for example, that the fiscal year 1989 budget of the Department of Education, housed in Washington, DC, was 17.1 billion dollars? By fiscal year 2016 it had risen to $68.3 billion. Obviously, a cost of $68.3 billion to your parents as taxpayers – and to you if you have a job and pay taxes – is hardly free.

In response, some argue that it is the government’s money to spend however it wants. But where does the money come from? The answer is that it gets it via taxation. That is something that America encounters every year on Tax Day, April 15th.

There are some enterprises, such as education, that the citizenry collectively agrees is a significant benefit to society. We are willing to support that investment via taxation. But let’s not pretend that it’s free.

But we must examine every "free" proposal that candidates are running on. It is our responsibility as voters and potential voters to know about the issues and their true effects and costs. The Department of Education budget is just one mini snapshot of “free” in America.

But as that demonstrates, we need to remember that "free" often costs us – big time. And we need to analyze every proposal to see whether it is worth the cost, because it will always cost us something.