Some people are upset about the ObamaCare mandate that everyone buy health insurance. Well, I looked into it, and it turns out that having health insurance is a really, really good idea. So the government isn’t making us buy it to be mean; the politicians just care so much about our well-being that they made it illegal to be so dumb as to not have health insurance.
Now, some want the Supreme Court to say that’s unconstitutional, but that’s silly. The Constitution is good, so how can it stop something else that’s good? No, the real question is what other good things the government should make us buy.
For instance, I’m not sure if I have fire extinguishers at home. I probably should, but I’ll never bother to go to the store and get some, and thus one day I might die in a fire. The government can save me by forcing me to buy fire extinguishers.
I often don’t do things because I’m lazy, but, like many people, I respond well to threats. So shouldn’t the government threaten me for my own good? The other day, I was at the supermarket, thinking that I should buy some healthy salad, but instead I got a bag of Doritos. Well, I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known I’d go to prison for not buying salad.
I also spent the evening on the couch watching TV. But what if I couldn’t afford cable because the government made me spend that money on a gym membership? I’d just have to go to the gym.
So then I’d be eating right and exercising (or at least watching TV at the gym), thanks to the government.
What if someone in the government buys the new Adele album and decides it’s just so good that everyone should buy it? I know some would resist, but then they’d buy the album and listen to it and say, “Wow! This is good. Thank you, government!”
Government mandates like these could be used for other things besides our self-improvement. Many people got mad when the federal government spent all that money bailing out the auto industry. What if, instead, the government had forced everyone to buy American cars? Boom! Auto industry saved at no cost to the government!
It’s mind boggling the number of buying decisions we have to make each year. So how great would it be to just turn our household budgets over to the federal government? I mean, those people deal with trillion-dollar budgets each year.
Well, they actually haven’t passed a budget in years — but with all the experience they have attempting to deal responsibly with trillions, they should be able to manage our measly incomes pretty easily.
Then we’d be free from all those oppressive buying decisions. What would be the alternative — that we’re each responsible for our own lives and get to decide how to spend our own money without government interference?
I don’t know what you’d call that hellish scenario. Fascism, I guess.
Frank J. Fleming is a political humorist.