Odds and Ends From Reason Magazine

As a follow up to our discussion on a Reason magazine article a few days ago, lets take a somewhat lighthearted look at some other events and incidents that Reason reported on in their March issue:

• In the Brickbats section, Reason reported that the Bowery Mission in New York City was forced to throw out a perfectly good batch of fried chicken that had been donated to the Mission by a local church. Apparently, the church had used trans fat to prepare the fried chicken and city law bans all licensed food vendors, which includes emergency food providers, from serving trans fat cooked food. Seems it is better for the downtrodden to go hungry than to clog their arteries.
• Also in Brickbats, a Chicago resident has been charged a felony for copying a movie. While doing some videotaping at a surprise birthday party for her sister at a local movie theater, Samantha Tumpach accidentally recorded less than four minutes of the film "Twilight: New Moon." She faces up to three years in jail if convicted. The article does not say whether she was trying to sell the videotape for profit, which she probably wasn't since it was less than four minutes of the film and who would be interested in the private birthday shots anyway. Second, does the Chicago judicial system have nothing better to do with their time and resources?
• A final Brickbats blurb talked about some true government waste. The House Of Representatives has passed a bill mandating that the National Park Service buy up Billy Carter's President Jimmy Carter's brother, old gas station and make it part of the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site. Also included in the legislation are requirements to take over a house that Jimmy Carter lived in between 1956 and 1961 and a state welcome center that may be closing because of state government financial shortfalls. This will all cost Federal taxpayers about $17 million over five years. Two things tragically wrong here. First, when the Statue of Liberty was in need of repairs several decades ago, all of the repairs were raised by private donations, no taxpayer dollars were used. In my opinion, the Statue of Liberty, was far more deserving of taxpayer support than a Presidential brother's gas station. If Miss Liberty did not get taxpayer support, then this project should certainly not get taxpayer support. Second, with all of the financial problems this country currently faces, I certainly believe there is a better use for $17 million, including returning it to the U.S taxpayer.
• A short article by Katherine Mangu-Ward was a little disturbing. According to Ms. Mangu-Ward, who was reporting on a USA Today investigation, meat that had been rejected by MacDonald's and Jack-In-The-Box restaurants is being served to U.S. schoolchildren. School meat faces less stringent meat testing requirements than restaurant meat. In restaurants, most fast food places pull samples every 15 minutes and test the samples every hour or two. The U.S. Department Of Agricultural requires that school cafeterias pull only eight samples a day and and combine the samples for a once a day test. According to Ms. Mangu-Ward, not only is the school meat tested less often but it is also tested for fewer contaminants. It is hard to understand the difference. If the restaurant testing requirements are too stringent, than they should be relaxed. If the school testing requirements are too lax, than they should be tightened up. Either, way having two separate standards for the same product makes no sense. This dichotomy is either wasteful (too much testing) or dangerous (too little testing).
• A final article uniquely shows how a little ingenuity and creativity can usually be more effective than crude and overbearing government programs that are usually a failure. The article by Mike Riggs, "Hunting For Fish," concerns an major environmental problem in the Midwest. Non-native Asian carp fish, which consume up to 50 percent of their body weight every day, were imported to the country in the 1970s with the intention of using them to filter sewage. Unfortunately, they got into the Mississippi River where they are upsetting the ecological balance and heading north. Illinois authorities installed million dollar electric gates to try and stop the carp but this was a failure. They then dumped 2,200 gallons of poison into the water to try and stop the carp migration. Prior to the dumping, the authorities removed native fish to the best of their ability and moved them to safe waters, all at taxpayer expense. The net result of the poison was one dead Asian carp and 10,000 dead native fish. Millions of dollars wasted and no results. Fortunately some creative entrepreneurs have gotten involved and have turned the crisis into a business. Given that the carp can be as big as 100 pounds and either jump out of the water or swim close to the surface, they are easy prey for bow hunters. Thus, businesses catering to bow hunting the Asian carp have sprung up and are reducing the threat in an environmentally neutral way. As a result, no more taxpayer dollars wasted, fewer destructive carp, a profitable business for the entrepreneurs, and a worthwhile hunting event for the bow hunters. Everybody wins (except the carp).

These examples illustrate two things. First, government solutions are usually costly and ineffective. Why we continue to stand for such slipshod performance is beyond me. Second, our priorities as a country and the associated government are very screwed up. We deprive the hungry of good food, we waste police and judicial resources on trivial matters when other, more serious criminal behavior goes unattended, we waste money on old gas stations when at least 10% of the country is unemployed, etc. That is why Step 39 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," term limits for Senators and Congressmen/women is so important. If they allow this kind of waste to go on, both the smaller examples discussed above and the multi-billion dollar wastes we discussed on Thursday, they need to be removed from office and we need to elect people who care about how taxpayer dollars are spent.

Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.