Saving Public Transportation or Prolonging its Failure?

Socialism versus Free Market has failed once again, with Public Transportation. The government’s answer is, pretty much admitting to it being a failure, to make new law (The Public Transportation Act of 2010) to bailout the problem and pass on the cost to the tax payer under the guise of preserving public transportation.

Where the problem begins is that, public transportation is competing with other forms of transportation (Cabs, personal vehicles, etc…). They are competing with the cost of what maybe cheaper to do. I calculate how much it is to pay for gas versus the fare to take me back and forth from work. With this competition, come the decisions that a normal company playing buy the rules of the free market would have to make regarding many costs of operation.

The costs of operation would include fuel, maintenance, and employee payroll. Has with all businesses in the Free Market, this formula depends on the right percentage of funds being allocated to each expense in order to compete and stay in business. The formula is where the problem is, the drivers, mechanics, and other operations jobs are union workers making a scale of pay that is not justifiable and out of wack with the percentage of other costs to run public transportation. This makes it harder to compete in the Free Market. Plus, being subsidized, eventually the money will run dry and more taxes will be needed and the cost will also be passed to the consumer because, tax increases will not be enough. The bus riders will only stand or afford so many hikes before seeking alternatives and you need riders to stay in business. Thus, bringing us to The Public Transportation Preservation Act.

This type of government solution through subsidizing with taxes and than, after the venture fails, using taxes to preserve it, is in part why we are in trouble now. This behavior does not reward success, it rewards failure by punishing those who do succeed with higher taxes to support those that don’t.

What should be done in this case and in many others? Much like innovation is born from necessity; innovation can be stifled by subsidizing failed and or out of date ideas. What if government decided to subsidize the horse and buggy business or Kerosene lamps when electricity was discovered? I personally think that Public Transportation's best bet for survival at this point is to leave it to the experts. Leave Transportation to people who know how to run businesses and compete to survive, privatize it.

The economy naturally expands and retracts, and with this comes new ways to do business and the old ways die. The economy is not in a vacuum, we can either try to fight innovation or we can adapt to it and build our businesses upon it. Government does not succeed in and should not attempt to create innovation, it simply should step out of the way and make an atmosphere where innovation is free to grow and thrive. It is only when government steps aside that we have been at our best.

Let us not use legislation to save a failure, let’s deregulate the market so that ideas can be truly free to inspire and grow our economy. To deregulate is not bad, we need to enforce the laws we already have to protect against wrongdoing in the private sector. Where we most need regulation is with our government.

- Micheal Garry