Unintended Consequences

   "Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy."--1 Corinthians 4:2

  I just finished watching John Stossel's, "Promises Gone Wrong", which outlined the unintended consequences of government programs initiated by Congress.  Now while Congress may have  good intentions, when they use our tax dollars for social or economic engineering, things never seem to work out.  Here are the programs in order:
1.  Cash for clunkers--billions of tax dollars that caused a short term spike in care sales, but did nothing for the long term.  The fallout was that used car prices rose by an average of $1800 per car.  The question is "What would Americans have done with the money spent on new cars that they did not need.?"
2.  Raising the minimum wage--did nothing for the low entry worker but raise the unemployment rate in that sector by 25%.
3.  Title 9-The program that required colleges to have a percentage of female/male athletes that reflected the  student body as a whole.  The result was that many male athletic programs were cut, even if they were self sufficient.  Before the act was passed there were over 100 male gymnastics programs, now there are 17.  It doesn't bode well for this Olympic sport.
4.  Sporting venues--stadiums, including Olympic venues, subsidized by taxpayer dollars with the promise that it would provide jobs and revenue to the local community.  This boondoggle never panned out as millions more were spent that was recovered as the venues sat empty for most of the year.
5.  Credit cards--congressional reform did nothing but raise interest rates, caused lenders to deny credit to those who previously qualified and drove those borrowers to payday lenders and loan sharks.
6.  Health Insurance reform--has already resulted in rising premiums, people having their policies dropped, companies leaving the industry or dropping child only policies because of the "previous condition" requirement.  To top it off, there have been over 100 waivers, granted mostly to unions, to escape the requirements.
7.  Family based agricultural business-offering billions in tax write offs for individuals to enter certain sectors such as raising and breeding alpacas.  Has created a market bubble where supply vastly exceeds demand and will eventually cause billions in losses.
8.  Energy--$50 billion in ethanol subsidies equal $1.78 per gallon of ethanol produced.  Prices of food and feed have gone up and ethanol production harms the environment more than the use of oil.
9.  Home ownership--is costing billions as congress forced banks into high risk loans to people who could not afford it.
10.  Government programs--by the hundreds, once funded, never go away and have led to the largest debt and deficit in the nation's history.

In the Christian worldview,  there is a concept called "sphere sovereignty".  What this means is that God has designed the world to work a certain way, has given specific roles to the family, church, government and the individual.  When  one of these institutions tries to operate in a "sphere" that is not its purview, things don't work the way they should.  Congress seems intent on repeatedly proving that this is true.