Opportunity Cost

In his poem, The Road Not Taken, the great American poet, Robert Frost, penned the famous line:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

https://poets.org/poem/road-not-taken

Economists talk about “opportunity cost.”  Generally applied, it is the benefit we lose when we choose one alternative over another. Let’s say a person may want a new car and a boat, but they do not have the money to buy both. If they buy the car, they get the benefit of dependable transportation, but they lose the recreational opportunities afforded by owning a boat. You get the idea.

Opportunity cost is typically used in relation to consumer choices. I think it may be useful in understanding the consequences of choices made in other scenarios, as well. 

In the 2016 election, American voters gave the Republican Party the Presidency, and control of the House of Representatives and Senate. In the best tradition of their party, however, they managed to rescue defeat from the jaws of victory. 

Donald Trump was a political outsider who wanted to change the way Washington did business. The knee-jerk reaction of “establishment” Republicans in the legislative branch was to oppose him. They willfully refused to consider the benefits the country might enjoy if Mr. Trump’s policies were codified in law. 

Chief among these old school Republicans was the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Speaker Ryan managed to torpedo the bulk of President Trump’s initiatives before they got out of the dock. 

Instead of taking the road less traveled, the “never Trumpers” remained mired in the old, misguided Republican policies that were holding the country back. They wanted the more familiar, “safer” road; because that was the way it had always been done … and it was the path to personal enrichment through “public service.” 

Consequently, President Trump had to content himself with revoking the regulations President Obama had established by executive order, and to implementing those of his policies that he could by executive order. The benefits were almost immediate, but the Republicans in the House and Senate ignored them. 

Like President Obama before him, much of what President Trump tried to do by executive order was immediately revoked when the succeeding (Biden) administration came into power.

The Democrats, however, are not ones to squander an opportunity.  The present squabble over spending aside, they are acting with a great deal of party unity – to the detriment of the United States of America. Like Tennyson’s Light Brigade, they continue the charge, undaunted by ‘failures to the right of them, failures to the left of them and failures in front of them.’  All the while, the RINO Republicans continue to fumble the ball. 

Painful as it may be, try to bring yourself to think about the opportunity cost resulting from the establishment Republicans’ choice to oppose President Trump’s policy initiatives, simply because they didn’t like him. After we finish crying our eyes out, then let’s try our best to throw out the RINO’s along with the Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections.