Governor Jerry Moonbeam Brown of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks the governor’s dog, then bites the governor.
Governor Moonbeam starts to intervene but reflects upon the movie “Bambi” and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.
He calls animal control. Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the state $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.
He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the state $200 for testing it for diseases.
The governor goes to the hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.
The running trail gets shut down for six months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.
The governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a “coyote awareness program” for residents of the area. The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate disease throughout the world.
The governor’s security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The state spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training re: the nature of coyotes.
PETA protests the coyote’s relocation and files a $5 million lawsuit against the state.
Now this is how is would happen in Texas!
The governor of Texas is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out and attacks his dog.
The governor shoots the coyote with his state issued pistol and keeps jogging.
The governor has spent $0.50 on a .45 ACP hollow point cartridge.
The buzzards eat the dead coyote.
And that, my friends, is why California is broke and Texas is not.
While it is a joke, there is a lot of truth to it.
Ronald Reagan said famously “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help”
Government always mucks things up! Beyond the waste, fraud and abuse, the government cannot micromanage.
Milton Friedman stated, “Almost all government programs are started with good intentions, but when you look at what they actually achieve, there is a general rule. Almost every such program has results that are the opposite of the intentions of the well-meaning people who originally backed it.”
It never works out correctly and the joke explains why.
Unfortunately, government cannot resist the temptation to interfere with the free market through a variety of mechanisms. Subsidizes, rent control, interest rate setting and many other schemes all accomplish the same thing: They fundamentally break the price discovery mechanism of the free market and, in all cases, necessarily lead to inefficiencies and exacerbate problems.
Left to its own devices, the free market system has an amazing ability to respond to shortages or surpluses in an agile manner. Further, since no oversight or intervention is needed, this system incurs no overhead costs and does not require a wealth sucking bureaucracy.
And THAT folks, is why Texas is MUCH better than California!