BrianGarst.com

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.

Government Meddling Archive

Monday

19

December 2011

0

COMMENTS

Another Government Social Experiment Crashes Into Reality

Written by , Posted in Education, Government Meddling

Kids may not be the smartest eaters, but they’re not dumb, either.

It’s lunchtime at Van Nuys High School and students stream into the cafeteria to check out the day’s fare: black bean burgers, tostada salad, fresh pears and other items on a new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But Iraides Renteria and Mayra Gutierrez don’t even bother to line up. Iraides said the school food previously made her throw up, and Mayra calls it “nasty, rotty stuff.” So what do they eat? The juniors pull three bags of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and soda from their backpacks.

“This is our daily lunch,” Iraides says. “We’re eating more junk food now than last year.”

Consider this their first lesson in the law of unintended consequences. More on the head-smacking failure:

For many students, L.A. Unified’s trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a flop. Earlier this year, the district got rid of chocolate and strawberry milk, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, nachos and other food high in fat, sugar and sodium. Instead, district chefs concocted such healthful alternatives as vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles.

There’s just one problem: Many of the meals are being rejected en masse. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students. Principals report massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away. Students are ditching lunch, and some say they’re suffering from headaches, stomach pains and even anemia. At many campuses, an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare is thriving.

They can’t even serve a reasonably healthy lunch that doesn’t leave children retching, and we expect them to deliver a quality education?

Thursday

10

November 2011

4

COMMENTS

The Real Problem With the "Christmas Tree Tax"

Written by , Posted in Economics & the Economy, Government Meddling, Liberty & Limited Government, Taxes

Yesterday evening, Heritage spotted a conspicuous entry in the day’s publication of the Federal Register, defining a new tax on Christmas trees, which would fund a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The story quickly blew up and went viral, and now the Administration is delaying implementation of the proposal.

The left has been quick to point out that the fee is welcomed by the industry, which wants the Christmas Tree Promotion Board to help reverse the downward trend in Christmas Tree sales versus their fake counterparts. They’ve tried creating a board in the past, it seems, but they kept falling apart as members were unable to overcome the free-rider problem, where none wanted to pay to benefit all. So in stepped government.

What’s wrong with this picture? It isn’t really the tax, which the government has falsely tried to claim is not actually a tax, which is both minuscule, amounting to 0.3% assuming an average tree price of  $40.00, and welcome by the industry. The problem is the fact that government is once again picking industry winners and losers.

Consider this description of the rule from OIRA (emphasis mine):

The Christmas Tree Promotion, Research, and Information Order would be implemented under the Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996. The purpose of the new program would be to increase the demand of Christmas Trees in the United States. The proposed new program will assist the fresh Christmas tree industry to: develop and finance an effective and coordinated program to strengthen the position of industry; and maintain, develop, and expand existing markets for fresh Christmas trees. Over the past 15 years, the sales of fresh Christmas trees has decreased from 37 million to 33 million trees. The decline in sales closely reflects the increase in sales of artificial trees. It is the hope of the fresh Christmas tree industry that a research and promotion program will help create a well coordinated national campaign to increase the demand of fresh Christmas trees. The industry has tried voluntary marketing campaigns only to watch them fade when contributors feel they are carrying the weight of the entire industry.

The purpose of the government program is to increase demand of Christmas Trees. Demand for Christmas Trees has declined because of rising demand for artificial trees. Presumably, then, increasing demand for Christmas Trees will require reducing demand for artificial trees. That’s great for the Christmas Tree industry, but not so great for the artificial tree industry.

Why is the government siding with one over the other?

This is a classic case of special interest politics, where government acts in the interest of one particlar interest at the expense of another. The targeted industry is often forced to respond by increasing lobbying and other government related activities of their own. The collective result is a drain of resources away from productive use and toward rent-seeking.

If people are increasingly abandoning real Christmas Trees for their artificial counter-parts – which don’t make a mess, require no watering, and can be reused year after year – it’s likely because consumers are increasingly judging the latter to be a superior product.  The government should not take it upon itself to try and change their minds, nor assist a competing industry in doing so.

Tuesday

8

November 2011

0

COMMENTS

Thursday

29

September 2011

0

COMMENTS

Nothing Hurts Quite Like Government Help

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Government Meddling, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

Ronald Reagan

Some think that conservatives oppose bigger government because we’re heartless and don’t want to help people, but really it’s because we understand that government solutions are quite often worse than the supposed problems. Here are a couple stories highlighting the joy of being on the receiving end of government ‘help’:

Bank of America announced Thursday it will charge its debit card users a $5 monthly fee beginning in early 2012…

The bank, the largest in the nation by assets, blamed its decision on the so-called Durbin Amendment, a provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law put into place by Democrats in 2010 that set limits on the fees banks could charge retailers for swiping their debit cards.

Bank of America said the economics of debit cards has been altered by the fee limit, which will take effect Oct. 1. Banks say the fees go to pay indirect costs of providing debit cards, such as fraud and overdraft protection.

This result should not be at all surprising from a policy that was really just a special interest handout for merchants. By making it less profitable for banks to offer debit cards, government just forced banks to change their model, and Bank of America is not the only one doing so. I knew exactly what the cause was – government meddling – when I get a letter from Suntrust a couple months ago instituting the same policy. I didn’t blame them, though it is nonetheless causing me, as the consumer, to reevaluate my own banking choices. And this is what government meddling does – it disrupts.

Former Sen. Dodd, one of the namesakes of the financial regulation bill which housed the Durbin Amendment, managed to momentarily stumble on the truth of unintended consequences from government actions when he admitted before passage that “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.” Well, now we know.

In other news, Obamacare is already driving up health premiums, despite not even being fully implemented yet:

Yesterday the Kaiser Family Foundation released its Employer Health Benefits Survey. The most unsettling finding is that premiums for family coverage jumped 9% in 2011 after last year’s 3% rise. How much of that is due to ObamaCare is debatable, but it’s not exactly a promising start.

Another interesting finding is that “an estimated 2.3 million adult children were enrolled in their parent’s employer-sponsored health plan due to the Affordable Care Act.” At the New Republic, Jonathan Cohn sees this as good news…

…Cohn seems to celebrate what is actually rather bad news. If more young adults are getting better coverage — i.e., more benefits and less cost-sharing — then costs are going to increase. For a few, it may mean better coverage for a serious illness. Yet since the 18 to 26-year-old population is among the healthiest, it will likely mean they will use more health care that they don’t really need or could be paying for out of pocket. In the long run, that means higher insurance premiums and higher overall health care costs.

Wednesday

31

August 2011

0

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Dog Days Edition

Written by , Posted in Government Meddling, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

For years, many neighborhood New York City bars were dog friendly. Aware of their own worthlessness, self-loathing bureaucrats need their misery to be shared be all. So seeing how taking their dogs to the bar pleased the people, bureaucrats sprung into action:

[I]t has always been a violation of the city’s health code to allow a dog anywhere near a beer tap. But for years, this has been one of the most widely — and gleefully — violated rules in the city.

Not any more.

Since the health department adopted a letter grade system for bars and restaurants last year, bar owners say, health inspectors are allowing no wiggle room for four-legged patrons.

The stricter enforcement is apparently bringing to an end a rich tradition of dog-friendly bars in New York.

“Bars are built around characters,” said Andrew Templar, an owner of Floyd NY in Brooklyn Heights, which received a violation notice after health inspectors twice observed dogs on the premises this summer. “Now it’s just people and their people problems.”

Given the types of things that often happen in bars, dogs ought to be the least of the health concerns. But even if there are legitimate concerns (and no where in the article is it every asserted than anyone’s health has been threatened), no one is forced to visit a particular establishment. Don’t want dogs at the bar with you? Go to a different bar.

It’s just one more instance of unnecessary government meddling curtailing freedom.

Wednesday

3

August 2011

0

COMMENTS

Eight Anti-Science Senators Seek to Halt GE Salmon

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, Government Meddling

For eight years we listened to self-righteous lefties wrap their personal policy preferences under the cloak of objective science, then beat  anyone who disagreed with those preferences over the head with charges of being “anti-science.” So when will we see the same treatment for the 7 Democratic Senators + 1 liberal Republican Lisa Murkowski for their letter threatening the FDA if they do not override the science in favor of their political opposition to genetically engineered salmon?

A group of senators has asked the Food and Drug Administration to abandon its approval process of genetically engineered salmon as food, threatening to push legislation to strip the FDA’s funding to study the fish if the agency does not comply.

Eight senators sent a letter dated July 15 to the FDA asking it to “immediately cease” consideration of such salmon, a product brought before the agency by AquaBounty Technologies 15 years ago.

…Although the fish would be kept in a land-based facility, environmental groups worry that the salmon could escape and potentially harm fish in the sea. They’re also concerned that the fish, which do not get any larger than unmodified salmon but grow twice as fast, could out-compete native populations for food.

…The senators, who represent coastal states with thriving fisheries such as Alaska, Oregon and Washington, pledged not to provide funding for the program should the FDA go forward with the approval process. They argue that genetically modified salmon could kill jobs by interfering with the fish farming industry, cause environmental damage and potentially harm consumers.

“I just don’t see a reason from a fundamental standpoint why we have to start manufacturing ‘Frankenfish’ when we have incredible fisheries that employ thousands of people,” said Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska).

And here we see their true motives. They are seeking to abuse the purpose of the FDA in order to protect existing industries in their states from competition. They threw out some token scientific concerns, but they are clearly flimsy.

“Even if someone were to steal and release them into the ocean of Panama, they would have to swim thousands of miles to find mates,” said Bill Muir, a professor of animal sciences at Purdue University who specializes in genetics and environmental risk assessment, particularly of fish. Muir said he’s looked at AquaBounty’s product and deemed it safe for the environment.

Their real concerns are based on protectionists economics and narrow self interest, as they seek to protect potential donors and supporters in their respective states. In other words, they are putting their political interests ahead of what’s right. This should come as no surprise, as the political system is designed to encourage just such behavior. This is one of the many faults with creating organizations such as the FDA in the first place. They are inherently part of the political process, and subjective to all the negatives of the incentive structure associated with it. Even if this attempted bullying does not succeed on this particular issue, it will and has already on many others.

Saturday

2

July 2011

0

COMMENTS

Will Google Learn not to Play with Fire?

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Government Meddling

Google has long been a proponent of Big Government. They’ve pushed net neutrality and coddled up to the Obama administration…and what has it all got them? A DoJ investigation and the necessity to waste a bunch of money hiring lobbyists to defend themselves from the terrible crime of being successful and creating jobs:

Google said Friday it will hire a dozen new lobbying firms in a sign the search giant is taking the Federal Trade Commission’s upcoming antitrust investigation seriously.

“We have a strong story to tell about our business and we’ve sought out the best talent we can find to help tell it,” said a Google spokesperson via email.

News broke last week that the FTC has subpoenaed documents for an upcoming investigation into whether Google has abused its dominance of the search market, the first broad antitrust probe of the firm. In response Google has retained a host of Washington lobbying firms to give lawmakers their view on issues such as privacy, copyright enforcement and competition in the search market.

Google ought to be learning a lesson from all this: If you play with the Big Government fire, you’re eventually going to get burned.

Friday

8

April 2011

1

COMMENTS

Government Health Care Leads to Tyranny

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Government Meddling, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

Forget all that compelling  wonkish stuff against government sponsored health care, like the third-party-payer problem, regulatory capture or public choice theory. The most compelling argument, and simplest to understand, is that it inevitably leads to tyranny. Once you decide that the health of an individual is of collective interest, and funded by collective dollars, you give that collective the authority to interfere in any individual act which impacts a person’s health, and it turns out that’s just about everything.

To wit (hat-tip: Moonbattery):

Saying that sugary drinks have caused rising obesity among city residents and driven up health care costs, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino today moved to ban the sale, advertising, and promotion of the drinks on all city property.

…The order applies to cafeterias, vending machines, concession stands, and beverages served at meetings, the mayor’s office said.The drinks that will be banned include: non-diet sodas, pre-sweetened ice teas, refrigerated coffee drinks, energy drinks, juice drinks with added sugar, and sports drinks…

Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said that in the long term, the policy will cut health care costs.

With Obamacare around the corner, this is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Under government run health care, nothing is personal any more.

Monday

4

April 2011

1

COMMENTS

Equality Taken to the Extreme

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Government Meddling, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

The Americans with Disabilities Act is one of those bills that everyone praises, but has in reality resulted in numerous headaches and legal absurdities. Witness the latest example (hat-tip: Overlawyered):

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled today that the Washington Redskins must make all audio projected into the stadium bowl over the public address system accessible to deaf and hard of hearing fans. The court held that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the Redskins to “provide auxiliary aids beyond assistive listening devices, which are useless to plaintiffs, to convey the: (1) game-related information broadcast over the public address system, including play information and referee calls; (2) emergency and public address announcements broadcast over the public address system; and (3) the words to music and other entertainment broadcast over the public address system.” The Court explained that the Redskins “provide more than a football game” and that deaf and hard of hearing fans “need access to this aural content to have full and equal access” to the game-day experience at FedExField, where the Redskins play their home games.

Should the blind also be allowed to wonder down and feel-up the cheerleaders? After all, they clearly can not equally participate in such visual entertainments. What about the deaf and blind? How will they get their football? Discrimination! And what if the deaf person does not speak English? How many languages must the lyrical subtitles be broadcast in? The list of questions over such a ridiculous requirement goes on and on.

A National Association of the Deaf spokesperson says, “The decision is a reaffirmation of the ADA’s goal of guaranteeing equal participation in all aspects of American life to individuals with disabilities.” If that is indeed the goal of the ADA, it should be repealed immediately. Such a task is not only contrary to the purpose of our government, it is impossible. “Equal participation in all aspects of American life” is an unreasonable standard that cannot be applied in a world of natural inequality.

The only equality people are entitled to is equality before the law. Equality of luxuries, entertainment, standard of living or happiness cannot be provided by government, and no government can even try without becoming a tyrannical regulator of all aspects of human life. Once it is realized that inequality cannot be realistically achieved through elevation of the have-not’s, government will instead systematically begin tearing down the have’s, leaving only the one equality government is capable of creating: equality of misery.

Saturday

19

March 2011

0

COMMENTS

The Unprogressive Power of Government

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, Government Meddling

Progress is a near constant in human affairs. In some times and places it occurs much faster than in others, but human beings tend to naturally seek ways to better our lives. Government certainly plays a role, and is often the institution that is being improved. Some of us have progressed from tyrannical dictatorships to representative government, for instance, and thus bettering the existence of the people living under those governments. We’ve also progressed through our governments via the establishment of basic rule of law, which has allowed economies to flourish.

Government is also a double-edged sword. It carries with it significant power to move backwards not found elsewhere in human society. A free economy, once established with property rights and contract enforcement, will progress at tremendous rate when left alone. Nor is any captain needed to helm the economy. Yet politicians will invariably try to steer economies anyway, seeking to create winners and losers of their own choosing for their own selfish (electoral) reasons. A consequences of this interference is negative progress, where not only does progress in a certain area stall, but our standard of living is actually reduced over time.

Consider this recent example of such meddling from the Wall Street Journal:

It might not have been the most stylish, but for decades the top-loading laundry machine was the most affordable and dependable. Now it’s ruined—and Americans have politics to thank.

In 1996, top-loaders were pretty much the only type of washer around, and they were uniformly high quality. When Consumer Reports tested 18 models, 13 were “excellent” and five were “very good.” By 2007, though, not one was excellent and seven out of 21 were “fair” or “poor.” This month came the death knell: Consumer Reports simply dismissed all conventional top-loaders as “often mediocre or worse.”

…The federal government first issued energy standards for washers in the early 1990s. When the Department of Energy ratcheted them up a decade later, it was the beginning of the end for top-loaders. Their costlier and harder-to-use rivals—front-loading washing machines—were poised to dominate.

…When the Department of Energy began raising the standard, it promised that “consumers will have the same range of clothes washers as they have today,” and cleaning ability wouldn’t be changed. That’s not how it turned out.

In 2007, after the more stringent rules had kicked in, Consumer Reports noted that some top-loaders were leaving its test swatches “nearly as dirty as they were before washing.” “For the first time in years,” CR said, “we can’t call any washer a Best Buy.” Contrast that with the magazine’s 1996 report that, “given warm enough water and a good detergent, any washing machine will get clothes clean.” Those were the good old days.

Newer Entries →
← Older Entries

About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

Search Site

Categories

Archives