photo #9320566

The Federalist Papers There is a moment coming for New York, and this cartoon captures it perfectly.It is the moment a lifelong Democrat walks past a mirror, glances over, and does not recognize the reflection. Same suit. Same party. But the face staring back has a white beard and a very old set of ideas.For years the promise was that putting the word "democratic" in front of "socialism" made it something new. Something softer. Something American. It does not. It never has. You can dress up a policy with a friendly name, but you cannot vote arithmetic out of existence.Free buses are not free. Somebody drives them, fuels them, repairs them, and insures them. A rent freeze does not create apartments. It freezes the incentive to build them, maintain them, and offer them at all. Government grocery stores do not lower the price of milk. They move the cost off the price tag and onto the tax bill, then add a layer of bureaucracy on top.This is the oldest trick in politics. Promise people something for nothing, and let them find the invoice later, after the signs come down and the cameras leave.Publius saw it coming. In Federalist No. 62 he warned that a government of constantly shifting rules ends up serving the well connected few at the expense of the industrious many. When the rules change every season, the people who prosper are the ones with lobbyists, not the ones with hammers.Socialism has never delivered equality of wealth. It delivers equality of scarcity. Everyone waits in the same line. Everyone finds the same empty shelf. That is the only equality central planning has ever managed, in every country that has ever tried it.The real tragedy is not that New Yorkers were misled. It is that the answer was written down nearly 240 years ago, in plain English, by men who had already watched what happens when government decides it owns the fruits of your labor.