What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits

July 18, 2023 By Richard C. Lyons

I caught a song on the radio yesterday, from one of my favorite vinyl efforts by the Doobie Brothers, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. A great album, fitting for a generation that took to the vices of drinking and smoking cigarettes among other things… The same generation found such habits are hazardous for one’s health, and are a lot harder to get rid of than they were to attain. Governments are like the people who compose them, they are subject to bad vice and habits

Our federal government has had a certain vice for over a century now, since Theodore Roosevelt broke Standard Oil and Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Reserve, our government has invaded our once “free enterprise” system with consistently disastrous results. For instance...... our federal government invaded the health care sector through the Social Security Act, creating Medicare and Medicaid; and has since been on the march to nationalize the whole industry. At every step of the takeover, government interference has meant skyrocketing healthcare costs. At every step, this takeover has meant much higher taxes for taxpayers.  Both higher prices and higher taxes are direct consequences of the growing government bureaucratic “control” of America’s healthcare sector.

As a matter of habit, the Administrative State formed Fanny and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants which now underwrite 90% of all home mortgages in America. This government interference in our once free enterprise system first led to skyrocketing home prices, then it led to the housing and stock market crash of 2008.  Today, the government “commands and controls” 100% of the home mortgage market............To Read More...