The Golden Rule

A couple days ago, the Supreme Court partially rebuked the Biden Administration by invalidating the COVID vaccine large employer mandate. Partially, in that the Court allowed the administration to mandate vaccinations for those who work in healthcare facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid.

The rationale for the former is that Congress didn't grant OSHA the power to impose such a rule when it created the agency back in 1970. This is narrower than a bodily autonomy-based ruling, and it does leave open the possibility that Congress could give OSHA that power with new legislation (which would probably generate new lawsuits). That's not about to happen, so call this one a win for liberty.

The rationale for the latter is a different matter. It's essentially the Wizard of Id version of the Golden Rule:

Whoever has the gold makes the rules.

In other words, as the ultimate employer of those workers via Medicare and Medicaid funds, the government gets to set rules. There are matters of nuance and legal specifics put forth by the dissenting justices, but they are a bit picayune for today's discussion.

Which is, in short, a "be careful what you wish for" warning to those who want to invest more power in government, to have government take more in taxes so that it can be spent on an ever-larger fraction of our economy. Already, the feds use firehoses of money to get around the division of power between then and the states. A notorious example of this was the 55 MPH national speed limit set by the Nixon administration in 1974. Since speed limits are the purview of the states, the feds said "if you want to keep receiving federal highway funds, you have to set your speed limits to 55 or less." A state legislature could opt out of the mandate, but would have the firehose turned off, and money, *especially* OPM, is what motivates governments and politicians more than anything else.

"Medicare For All" would, by this rationale, empower the government to make all sort of invasive decisions about your health care. Each would involve some rhetoric about necessity and public health, and each would ratchet up the "acceptable" level of government control over our bodies.

As would countless other big-government programs.

Libertarian satirist P.J. O'Rourke, in his book Parliament of Whores, quipped that,

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Defenders of big-government often rely on anecdotes, on tales of this person or that family saved from ruin by government largesse (often presented in false-dichotomy fashion, as if private charity, volunteerism, and other non-government forms of safety net do not exist), but rarely speak of the truly unfathomable waste, corruption, ineffectiveness, counter-productiveness, or opportunity costs associated with all that money taken (by force) from the taxpayers. They never bring up how many people did *not* get helped because the government spent $518,000 studying how cocaine affects the sexual behavior of Japanese quails, or $283,500 to monitor the day-to-day life of baby gnatchatchers, or $440,000 a year to have elevator operators in the Capitol (the elevators are normal and modern, with the usual button for each floor).

Money attracts suitors, and those who control the money control a whole lot of everything else.

Want to fix politics? Step one - give politicians less money.