NY Spurs Economic Growth by Spending $27.5 million to Change Font on Street Signs

The parable of the broken window was created by Frédéric Bastiat in 1850 (see his book Essays on Political Economy for more) to illuminate the notion of hidden costs associated with destroying property of others, and yet today uneducated and foolish Democrats ignore it and insist that economic growth can be stimulated in the United States simply by spending money. Democrats at every level point towards their insistence on government spending as a way of demonstrating that they know how to revive the economy, but most of that spending involves the destruction of something in society which is then rebuilt at a large cost.

For example, my Democratic Congressman pushed to redo a bunch of roads in my area, roads which were still okay and only showed slight signs of deterioration, and then he campaigns about how he is reviving the economy through actions like that. Tearing up a road and rebuilding it does not revive the economy and more so than breaking someones window does. The destruction of property followed by its reconstruction with only marginal improvements might seem like you are marginally improving society, but to pay for that destruction and reconstruction you need to take money from people who are putting it to considerable productive use (investing it, buying products, saving it in the bank, buying services, etc). The trade-off is a loss for society as a whole. It isn't really that complicated, and yet the wise and intelligent Democrats don't seem to get it.

Via memeorandum comes this story from The New York Daily News "New Yorkers outraged as bureaucrats order city to change lettering on every single street sign":

The city will change the lettering on every single street sign - at an estimated cost of about $27.5 million - because the feds don't like the font. Street names will change from all capital letters to a combination of upper and lower case on roads across the country thanks to the pricey federal regulation, officials said Wednesday.

By 2018, MADISON AVE. will become Madison Ave. and will be printed in a font called Clearview, the city Department of Transportation says. The Federal Highway Administration says the switch will improve safety because drivers identify the words more quickly when they're displayed that way - and can sooner return their eyes to the road.

Still, several city residents were OUTRAGED.

The government under the Democrats continue to break windows and destroy the economy, and every day that they are in power our country and society gets a little worse off, in hundreds of little ways.

UPDATE: Apparently Democrats broke window's all over the nation, as the law that forces NYC to change its signs is a federal unfunded mandate that requires that all traffic signs in the entire nation be of a certain minimum size and be made of a more highly reflective paint to make them easier to read, particularly at night. It also dictates that street names be printed in a combination of capital and lowercase letters rather than in all capital letters. There is no money to support this mandate, and it falls on local communities to implement this change or face lawsuits.

As of now, local communities all across the nation are deciding to layoff policeman and fireman in order to comply with this federal mandate.