The liberal Brookings Institution has decided that Kentucky needs new laws to keep poor people from being charged more for goods and services.
This fabulous idea, if enacted, would work just like HB 250 in 1994 that ran off dozens of health insurance companies with the ridiculous mandate that the companies stop charging market rates. That too, was a left-wing scheme to improve on market forces.
The Brookings study was good to the extent that it recognized poverty isn't just about income. What it missed is that any able-bodied person with average intelligence and an absence of mental illness can improve his circumstances by working more and spending less.
If public policy were focused more on helping those who fall through more narrowly defined cracks, more people would figure out how to thrive.
Then we wouldn't have to depend on left-wing think tanks to tell us to change zoning laws to "weed out" high-cost businesses. Ugh...
