Homelessness

The Denver Post had a column on homelessness today, and here's my response. Don't know if they'll print it since I got published not too long ago.

Roxane White's homeless column conveniently ignores history and how Denver politicians (and others) created the problem they want to solve. 10 or 15 years ago Denver had a number of flophouses that homeless people used. Denver ran them out of business and tore them down. Each year, government regulations cost small businesses (less than 20 employees) $6,975 per employee. Those costs are imbedded in every product and service we buy and make it more difficult for the poor to survive. Government waste is another huge burden. The net result is that the price of a loaf of bread, for example, contains 31 percent taxes. Not direct sales tax, mind you, but the income tax on the checkout clerk and the executive or owner, social security tax on the employee and the store, property taxes on the store, fuel taxes on the gas in the truck that brought the bread to the store, and on and on and on. If you got rid of 20 percent of this burden, there would be no homeless problem. Instead, Ms. White and other economic illiterates that populate the halls of government and editorial boards want to make the problem worse by increasing the burden on the poor as well as the rest of us. They conveniently don't tell you how you're going to pay for it. And pay you will.