We’re number 50! We’re number 50!
That’s right, New Yorkers–according to a widely publicized George Mason University Freedom In The States survey, we just got handed the freedom booby prize, ranked as the “least free” state in the nation.
Dead last? How could this happen?
“New York has by far the highest taxes in the country,” reads the study funded by the university’s Mercatus Center, really a libertarian “think tank”. (I think, therefore I make silly lists)
Our high tax rate resulted in the sin of greater spending on such ghastly extravagances as hospitals, public transit and employee retirement__all “well above the national norms,” scolds the report.
Amazing how many media outlets published these conclusions without questioning them. We all “know” that higher taxes = less freedom, don’t we? Tax and spend, tax and spend. Polly want a cracker?
So why don’t I feel less free than those living in, oh I don’t know, Indiana, which made the Freedom Top Five with a bullet?
And I do mean bullet–guns are ridiculously easy to obtain in Larry Birdland. Indiana also recently banned funding for Planned Parenthood, which gives women freedom of choice regarding contraception and abortion rights. Yet the survey ranks Indiana as the 3rd most free state in the good old US of A!
So let me get this straight, libertarians–states that make it difficult to obtain legal abortions don’t get penalized? Huh? What about that, study co-author Jay Sorens? “Rather than take a stand, we simply ‘coded the data’ (whatever that means) on abortion and didn’t include it in the final tally,” explains Sorens in his best gobbledygook.
The truth is, one man’s freedom is another man’s shackles. I’ve written many times here about Mayor Bloomberg’s “Nanny State” excesses, and no, I don’t want my government telling me not to drink soda or eat soup. But Bloomberg’s crackdown on easily obtained firearms gives me greater freedom to walk the streets in safety, while his ban on smoking in restaurants gives me the freedom to enjoy a meal without coughing my lungs out and having my health endangered by the addict beside me.
And regulating insurance companies is limiting freedom? What freedom? The freedom to gouge? The freedom to die due to being priced out of affordable health coverage? Can you run that definition of freedom by me once more?
Time to check that top five “most free” state list again. Ok, New Hampshire was obviously awarded bonus points because of its “Live free or die” motto. But what about the other four? You are certainly free to live in South Carolina, Indiana, Missouri or Idaho if you choose. You are then free to sit in the house and stare at the teevee after they roll up the sidewalks at dusk.
Now let’s take a glance at the “least free” state list: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and Hawaii. Hmm…
Sense a pattern here? The more progressive states are labeled ”unfree”, and the red states free as a bird. What’s that you say? You’d pick living in New York or Hawaii over Indiana or Idaho in a heartbeat?
Well no freedom fries for you, you socialist!
Dear Mr. Gritty
I agree that “one man’s freedom is another man’s shackles”, and I too would “pick living in New York or Hawaii over Indiana or Idaho in a heartbeat.”
As far as taxes: whenever I tell my friends in NJ, Florida or California how low our real estate tax is in Staten Island NY, they refuse to believe me! In many cases it’s less than a quarter of what they pay annually. When we were house shopping 20 years ago we realized that to live in NJ and pay over $16,000 a year (in some towns), just in tax was something we could not afford, (and those taxes have gone up since then), plus other monthly expenses like garbage pick up and hot water.
And our lovely commute to Manhattan on the Staten Island Ferry is FREE– both ways!
– Lou
Of course the survey is skewed. But who cares? We don’t have to live in those wildly “free” states. Living in So. Florida is almost as free as living in NYC– except during hurricane season!
I agree with you on a couple of things. NY is a great city, maybe the greatest in the world. And anyplace that would interfere with a woman’s right to choose cannot be considered a bastion of freedom.
But NY is great despite its encroachments on our freedoms, not because of them. It became a great city because it is the financial center of the US and thus generated great wealth. All who live here benefit either directly or indirectly from that fact. Our legacy of greatness does not come from politicians, but from captains of industry and leaders in the world of arts and sciences.
And yes, high taxes do diminish your freedom. If you make $60/hr and the govt takes $20 of it, that means that for 20 minutes of each hour you work, you’re toiling not for yourself, but for a bloated govt bureaucracy. (Not to mention the additional taxes you have to pay after you bring home your diminished salary…sales tax, property tax, motor vehicle fees, etc, etc.) So, the higher your taxes, the more of your time is spent working for the govt rather than yourself and your family.
As for privately-owned businesses such as insurance companies and restaurants, you have the freedom to take your business elsewhere if you’re not happy with them. And why shouldn’t the restaurant owner have the freedom to run it the way he sees fit? After all, he put his time, money and labor into it. If he doesn’t please his customers, his entire investment will be lost. That’s a pretty powerful incentive to make the customers happy (without the heavy hand of government). Take away the smoking ban and my guess would be most restaurants would continue to prohibit smoking. Some would allow it, and you, the public, would be Free to Choose, (which by the way is the name of a great book by Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman).
Artie:
You outline the libertarian argument quite well. As far as “being free to take your business elsewhere”, you make a thoughtful point when it comes to restaurants, but I believe it falls apart when it comes to insurance companies.
When there is collusion (and there is), the price of health care is artificially inflated. When insurance companies are allowed to drop you because of a “preexisting condition” when you actually need them (it took what you guys derisively call “Obamacare” to get rid of that obscenity), when the price of a drug is grotesquely marked up in America, costing up to five times what it costs in Canada and Europe, something is amiss.
The public option would have enabled U.S. citizens to use economies of scale to buy in bulk and reduce the cost of medications to affordable levels; that’s why insurance and pharmaceutical companies fought so hard against it. They would have still made a handsome profit, but not ripped us off. What we have now isn’t “competition”, but price fixing. When customers aren’t “pleased”, we have nowhere else to go besides another obstuctionist insurance company.
This reality isn’t about buying a nice restaurant meal, but life and death issues. I’m all for fair competition, but what we have now is anything but.
Mike V
Here’s a novel idea: how about if people paid for their own health care out of their own pockets? Insurance would be used only for catastrophic issues, like car insurance. Then there might even be some downward pressure on health care costs.
No wait, I have a better idea: let’s artificially restrict the supply of available health care through laws and licensing requirements. Let’s then make it illegal for insurance policies that pay for only catastrophic problems. On top of that, let’s have the government directly subsidize health care spending to the tune of 100% (50% of all healthcare spending is directly paid by the government.) What do you think will happen to health care costs?
Get the government out of health care. They are doing to health care what they have done to education and housing.