Economics 101: #Portland #BlindSquirrel Finds A Nut

We on the Right have discussed all the Democrat actions and their negative economic effects for years now. The First Street Journal has many such articles. We know that raising taxes causes products to be more expensive and thus, less affordable. We know that raising the minimum wage causes products to be more expensive and thus, less affordable. That causes businesses to increase their prices and down-size. But the Left never understands that.

But Portland, Oregon, is a blind squirrel and has found a nut. In an effort to make people want to give up their parking spaces so other people can park there, Portland has decided to increase the cost of parking meters 25 percent. Instead of paying a buck sixty per hour to park at the meter, it will now cost 2 dollars. And the businesses and customers are in agreement. The increase will cause people to not want to park in that spot all day, thus opening the spot for customers to park and make purchases.

By making multiple-hour parking less affordable, the city hopes to have fewer people doing the multiple-hour parking. This goes with economic common sense. It’s a fill-in-the-blank piece of economic common sense. “By making _______________ less affordable, fewer people will do __________.” By making widgets less affordable, people will buy fewer widgets. See how that works? The Left doesn’t see that. But Portland, Oregon, has stumbled onto that concept in its efforts to make their limited number of parking spaces more available to more people.