Think about that for a second . . .

Originally Blogged: Monday, April 16, 2012

As much as I love you, The New York Times, you have really scraped the bottom of the idiotic barrel publishing N. Gregory Mankiw’s “Competition is Healthy for Governments, Too” in the Economic View section on April 14, 2012. Mankiw argues that state and local governments compete with one another as businesses do, because American citizens can easy move from their home state or municipality to a different state or municipality if they believe another area uses tax dollars more efficiently. Moving outside the country is apparently too difficult, but moving from state to state is easy –according to Mankiw. This is why, Mankiw argues, Romney’s healthcare mandate in Massachusetts is not oppressive, while Obama’s very similar healthcare mandate for the entire country is more problematic. Because, Mankiw states, “Anyone who finds the Massachusetts health insurance mandate objectionable can easily move to live-free-or-die New Hampshire.” Mankiw is a professor at Harvard University and an advisor to Mitt Romney.
        Dearest Professor Mankiw, I’m not a university professor, I don’t have a PhD in economics, I don’t have an MBA. I am, however, an American citizen and an active voter. I also have something you don’t have, which is apparently the ability to see the world as it actually is, not as it exists in some fantasy novel disguised as an economic textbook. I’m going to lay some truth on you here, N. Gregory – people can’t just up and move to another state that easily. Here’s the scenario.
       I am a married woman with a job, a husband with a job, and three children in school. I live in Louisiana, where my family has lived for four generations. My parents are there, as are my husband’s parents. My children like their teachers, and they like playing with their cousins on the weekend. My spouse and I are happy in our jobs. We own a house, but our mortgage is a few thousand dollars underwater. Luckily, we are employed and can afford the payments anyway. My husband and I are graduates of Louisiana universities, and I am active in my sorority’s local alumni association. All of our professional references and contacts are local. I speak a little Cajun French and make great crawfish. Are you really saying, N. Gregory, that I am going to up and move my family to Washington State because I think the public libraries and the roads are better there? Even if, somehow in this difficult economy and with no local contacts, my husband and I both found jobs with equivalent salaries in Washington State, do you have any idea what it would cost to just up and move an entire household across the country? To sell a house at a loss? Not to mention the non-monetary costs of uprooting children and leaving friends and family.
       People don’t do that for longer library hours and fewer potholes. They don’t do that even if they are renters and don’t have roots as deep as the family described above does. Do you really think that moving across state lines is as easy as changing the Sunday night family dinner location from Red Lobster to Red Robin? Because that’s what you said, you said it was easy. Professor Manikew, state and local governments are not businesses. They do not compete like businesses. Pretending they do may make sense in your mind. It may make sense in an economic equation on a chalkboard. But it doesn’t make sense in the real world, and Americans live and vote in the real world.