Michigander in Mass

I couldn't believe this. Who's the frigging genious who came up with this idea: "The lots on Congress Street in South Boston -- one with 375 spaces, and one with 200 spaces -- are required to stay closed until 9:30 a.m. on weekdays."

This is supposed to cut down on pollution and encourage public transit? More people either idling waiting for the lot to open or driving around more than usual looking for other spaces. And it hurts business for the folks who own the property.

Nuts! If you're going to encourage public transit, don't do a half-assed job at it. Improve the transit system, don't cripple the driving system. Then get rid of the parking spaces altogether, and develop the property so it's more than just a frigging parking lot (but includes parking).

This is the same kind of warped "supply side" economic logic that says:

1. The drug problem should be fixed by spending all of our money controlling the supply (causing the price to go up and new supply routes to develop), rather than on legalizing the less dangerous drugs (and taxing and regulating them) and treating people for drug problems and prevention programs.

2. Diseases should be treated by killing all bacteria, even the beneficial ones, leaving only a few hearty strains to survive, multiply and eventually kill us off quite effectively.

3. Our oil supply troubles should be addressed by spending billions meddling in the affairs of sovereign foreign states so they're more stable, rather than spending billions to encourage less consumption.

4. The problem with terrorists should be solved by invading foreign nations, revoking some of my freedoms, holding hundreds of potential or suspected terrorists indefinitely without formal charges, and forcing me never to have my handy swiss army knife on me, rather than by more effectively educating people here and abroad.

Supply-side economics has been huge since the 1970s, when economists figured out how to produce economic growth without inflation and--for the most part--how to keep us out of recession a little more effectively. But the heart of supply-side economics--the notion that production or supply is the key to economic prosperity and that consumption or demand is merely a secondary consequence--does not survive long outside the body economic.

Supply-side economics has indeed helped us prosper as a nation. But the idea doesn't translate well outside the macroeconomic sphere. It's a great idea for forming monetary policy, but not for drug policy, health policy, foreign policy, domestic policy, etc.