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Price Controls Are a Slippery Slope

Should the government decide what and how much businesses can produce?

Do you really think it’s a good idea for government to decide what businesses and entrepreneurs can produce, and how much they can produce? Should the government decide who should buy from whom, and at which price things should be bought or sold? Where people should work and how much they should get paid?

When the United States, under President Nixon, attempted price controls in the 1970s the results were catastrophic. Only the government wins with price controls — justifying bloat by swelling the ranks of well-salaried bureaucrats charged with implementing the controls, monitoring prices, and creating useless reports to justify their existence. Those who pay for government — in today’s America, a dramatically shrinking middle class — draw the short straw.

Yet politicians like Canada’s Justin Trudeau are threatening to impose new taxes on grocery stores if they don’t find a way to lower food prices. “It’s not okay that our biggest grocery stores are making record profits while Canadians are struggling to put food on the table,” Trudeau said.

Even if they are well-intentioned (a big if), price controls are a slippery slope to all-out control.

READ MORE: Why price controls are a very bad idea