Nothing is “free,” obviously. Free just means someone else is paying for it. Sometimes that may be justified, but there is nothing intrinsically virtuous about the government taking people’s money and giving it to someone else.
The other issue with “free,” is that free always costs more, whether it is education, health, or nappies. A perfect example is the free diapers to be given to parents of newborns in California. Lovely idea. Why not help out?
Well, first, because it is someone else’s money, someone who has worked for it and may be in just as much need as the new parents.
And secondly, because because the free diapers cost taxpayers at least three times more than if the parents had bought them themselves.
As the article linked below points out, if the government really wanted to help, a much more efficient way to do so would be to give parents a voucher they could spend at a local retailer. Or even better, stop interfering, and just let people pay for what they want according to their own priorities, with money they have earned.
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