A primer is something that provides elementary lessons; it teaches the basics. There is a segment of the American public that needs a primer on what happens when the government tries its hand at directing the economy. Personally, I think the lessons are quite obvious, but ignorance is widespread.

The first lesson is that our political leaders [depending on who is in charge, of course] often believe that government spending is the key to prosperity. In fact, President Obama has stated this explicitly. Now if the concept of spending one’s way to prosperity seems a trifle contradictory to you—well, that means you have a grasp of how logic works. That’s not always the case with the government. It would be nice if Obama and his allies would at least admit they have a logic problem. Perhaps they some help in discovering this.

I guess some people never do learn to take personal responsibility for anything. That’s another one of those basics we need to learn, by the way.

Lesson #2 is that instead of learning from the mistakes of out-of-control spending, the government decides to solve the problem by allowing even more spending.

There, problem resolved.

A third lesson is that it doesn’t matter if a program goes bankrupt. The best thing to do is simply ignore reality. Life is less stressful that way.

Finally, government never gives up on its plans to take over more and more of the economy, no matter how awful the idea, how resistant the public is to it, or how dead it seems.

I hope this primer has been helpful. Feel free to spread the word.