Here’s the Big Lesson Government Should Take From Private Enterprise

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JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently revealed the one lesson government never seems to learn from the private sector: officials do not always need to raise taxes and spend more money, they need to sit down and fix existing policies so they actually work. 

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That lesson consistently seems to evade politicians, especially Democrats, who often promise more efficient programs, but only after raising taxes on the wealthy, and more broadly, increasing taxes overall. The real issue is not simply that policy fails, but that failed policy is rarely scrapped or meaningfully fixed. Instead, we end up with layers upon layers of ineffective policy stacked on top of each other.

“I think good good policy is free,” Dimon said. “I feel like telling the politicians: Don’t try to raise more taxes or spend more money. Sit down and fix policy. And I think you can grow 1 percent faster I literally believe that. And the public knows you can’t get certificates of occupancy. You can’t get roads, build bridges. The Baltimore Bridge was supposed to be built by now its another five years. I go on and on and on.”

Behold the inefficiency of government, which still believes that adding programs on top of programs, alongside ever more funding, is the solution to every problem. If the private sector operated this way, the United States would grind to a halt, yet it remains a lesson government never seems to learn. 

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In New York City, Mamdani has proposed new programs for universal childcare, expanded tenant protections, and additional policies aimed at lowering housing costs. Yet many of the policies he is now promising New Yorkers have a similar version already in place, that has promised to achieve the same goals.

The same is glaringly true not only in New York City, but also in California, where every problem seems to require its own government program and higher taxes, and where the state never appears willing to roll back a program once it’s created. Take California’s gas tax, for example, which is supposedly meant to improve infrastructure. You would think that with the highest gas tax in the country, the state would have some of the best roads, yet California currently ranks 49th nationwide in road quality. Clearly, the money is not reaching what it’s intended for, and Newsom has still refused to temporarily suspend the gas tax to provide relief amid rising gas prices. Instead, he continues pushing policies that further increase fuel costs without ever truly addressing the problem.

“It’s frustrating. It hurts It’s embarrassing and it always hurts the the civilians of our country,” Dimon continued.

Dimon went on to explain how his private meeting with the New York City mayor went.

“He was very polite. It was very earnest. We had a very good conversation, but I said everything I wanted to say,” Dimon said. “I got to talk about affordable housing and child care. Most people want it. If you do it badly, it would be a disaster… Do it right. There are studies that can tell you how to do it right. Get people who know what they’re doing and implement proper policies.”

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“I’ve seen mayors grow into the job. I mean he’s running the city of 300,000 employees now. He’s never had a job like that I’ve seen mayors who just they feel abysmally because they can’t admit themselves out of a paper bag or Ideology blinds them to practical realistic real-world policy and so we’ll see,” he added. “And you know if I can help do the good stuff, I’d be happy to do that.”

This comes just days after Mamdani announced his new affordable housing initiative, “Block by Block,” where he claimed the city would not follow the path of other socialists by seizing private property and redistributing it, but would instead… seize private property and redistribute it.

Editor’s Note: New York City is now facing the consequences of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist takeover.

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