Scott Liddicoat

“Investments.”  We can always depend on the media to breathlessly promote their favorites.  For example:

• Last year congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers wants “to invest in services like after and out-of-school programs.”
• Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich has said we need “to continue to make substantial investments in public safety.”
• Not that long ago, WI State Representative David Steffen declared that Brown County excess sales tax revenue should “be used for impactful, long-term, transformative investments.”

Thank goodness true investors don’t take lessons from politicians.  Political “investing” has almost nothing in common with the real investing you and I do.  Let’s be honest.  It’s plainly a calculated abuse of the word.

Politicians don’t “invest” anything.  They spend taxpayer money. Their “investments” seldom involve the purchase of a genuine financial asset.  If income or a capital gain is actually produced, it doesn’t come back to benefit taxpayers.  Returns couldn’t come back to us anyway.  There’s no honest, objective accounting to show anyone any kind of return on “investment” with anything government does. 

Unlike you and me, government doesn’t set aside other needs or wants to make “investments.”  They simply tax us more, or (at the federal level) print more cash.  To many politicians it’s just someone else’s money, taxpayer money after all. 

Government “investments” never solve problems in any case.  Has any government crisis you’ve heard of ever been resolved?

Above all, there’s no monetary risk for individual politicians.  They never risk their own money on their “investment” schemes.  Any “investment” failure is simply concealed with additional tax money, or the failure is just ignored. 

If politicians really wanted to serve people and solve problems, they’d start their own businesses instead.  Talkers getting to work.  Hard to imagine, isn’t it? 

As business owners, they’d take the financial risk of “investing” in all those high paying jobs with generous benefits they talk about.  They’d “invest” in manufacturing processes that create no pollution.  They’d “invest” in lots of charitable causes.  They’d especially “invest” in keeping their prices down.

If their business “investments” actually worked in the free market, employees, consumers, and real investors, would flock to their doors.  Everyone involved would be better off and wealthier, too.  The problem of businesses doing things the “wrong” way would be solved automatically.  “Bad” companies would be driven out of business through freedom of choice.  Importantly, taxpayers wouldn’t have to “invest” a penny—unless they wanted to.  And that would be a real investment.  That’s the genuine formula for serving people, solving problems, and making our world a better place. 

If you’ve read this far you’ve probably beaten me to these conclusions.  Every time you hear or read of a politician wanting to “invest” in anything, an alarm should go off in your head.  Really loud. 

Loud like standing six inches from a tornado siren when it goes off.  It’s your money they’re spending and now things are only going to get worse.

Be deeply suspicious of politicians who talk about “investing” taxpayer money.  “Dismiss” them at election time.  Be just as suspicious of a media that never challenges the deliberate misuse of words like “investing.”  More and faster means are available to you to “dismiss” such lazy and deceitful reporting.  Simply don’t support it.

Get behind and sustain politicians working responsibly to provide us with honest, deliberate, and just government.  Then support and really invest in businesses providing us with products and services that represent our values and our faith.  Use freedom to make our world a better place.

Got to go!  Joe Biden’s coming to Madison to talk about his “investments” in the economy.  Hear anything?

Saltwatertea.org      March, 2023