There is no such thing as a Right to Healthcare or a Living Wage

Dr. Walter E. Williams, PhD and Professor Emeritus (economics) at George Mason University was interviewed by our friend John Hawkins at RightWingNews. Great question – great answer. Go ahead Progressives – discuss (emphasis mine)!

What do you say to people who claim that they have a RIGHT to health care or a RIGHT to a "living wage?"

Well, there’s no such thing as those kind of rights. As a matter of fact, I think they should call them wishes. If they said, "I wish everybody had health care" or "I wish everybody had a living wage," I would agree because I, too, wish that they had more.

But, when a person says that he has a right to something that he did not produce, that means that some other person does not have a right to what he DID produce because there is no Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. That is, if the government is going to spend money so you have a right to medical treatment, ...then it has to take that money from somebody else. That means some other American, whom the government is going to take money from for your right to medical care — he does not have a right to what he earned.