The counterplan introduces a price control—price controls harm consumers and the economy
Scott Harris & Christopher Baecker 19 Scott K. Harris is a consultant at the Free-to-Choose Network, an associate producer at Izzit.org, and is in his thirty-third year of teaching, currently focusing on teaching macroeconomics and political science to high school students. Baecker is an accountant, candidate for San Antonio City Council, lecturer on economics at Northwest Vista College, and the Editor and Policy Director at InfuseSA. “Consequences of “Free” College”, Foundation for Economic Education, March 26, 2019, https://fee.org/articles/the-unintended-consequences-of-free-college/CR
One deficiency experienced at the grammar-school level would likely also arise from this proposal: the erosion of price signals.
Prices are more than just the dollars and cents we pay for a good or service. They encompass a bundle of information: the cost of the inputs, the prices of competing goods, the supply of and demand for the service, the effects of natural conditions, etc.
Introducing price controls invariably causes problems.
Prices compel us to prioritize our wants when faced with limited resources. It’s how we deal with scarcity, the fundamental problem in economics. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.”
Introducing price controls invariably causes problems. The minimum wage, a price floor, deprives younger people of as early a start in the workforce as they’d prefer. Price ceilings, above which a product may not be sold, have recently led to malnutrition and weight loss in Venezuela.
Capping tuition at $0 is a price ceiling.