Assumptions are a risky business. They involve the unknown and, therefore, the potentially dangerous. But not all assumptions are created equal, because not all assumptions are unreasonable. Some suppositions are more reasonable than others. Consider, you assume the bed on which you sleep, the chair on which you sit, and the floor on which you walk will not collapse. Experience has convinced you the risk, although real, is minimal, and so you operate on this reasonable assumption.

Enter the politician.

Whenever the power of government is used to foster “change,” lawmakers are tempted to make very unreasonable assumptions. The problem for the politicos comes down to this: People have brains and actually use them from time to time. But the politician assumes citizens will not react to having their wealth confiscated, or that people won’t make short sighted decisions in order to qualify for the government dole. Neither scenario is at all reasonable, but the assumption is dangerous!

Moral hazard describes the idea that behavior is affected when people are shielded from risk. Insulate them and they act differently. So it’s not that political programs are bad or good in and of themselves. They are simply powerless to make changes in isolation. In other words, people have brains and act in their best interest. There is absolutely nothing any lawmaker can do to change this fundamental aspect of human nature. It is completely unreasonable to assume otherwise.

On my way to work I cross over a bridge and, yes, I assume it will bear the weight of all the traffic. Were it to fail, my assumption would prove to be unfortunate but not unreasonable. But, what if the bridge were known to fail 10 percent of the time? How about 20, 30 or 50percent of the time? Notice how the nature of the risk does not change but the reasonableness does. The fact is that NO GOVERNMENT PROGRAM HAS EVER avoided the moral hazard of unintended consequences. Not one. At what point does it become unreasonable to assume the next one will actually work?

I have a wild idea…let’s try actually following the Constitution of the United States of America. Does that sound reasonable to you?