The American Political Class: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Part 2 Continued

Yesterday we reviewed The Good aspects of the American political class within our context of the old Clint Eastwood classic western, "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." Today we will review some of the Bad aspects of the American political class and follow that up tomorrow with a look at the really Ugly side of America's politicians.

The Bad

1) The April 30, 2010 issue of The Week magazine had an article describing how the Securities and Exchange Commission has gone after Goldman Sachs with a fraud suit. This is the same agency whose inspector general reported that 31 separate internal investigations had been done and found that numerous SEC officials, many of whom were in the upper ranks of the Commission, were heavily involved in viewing and downloading pornography off of the Net during work hours and on government computers. A second black eye for the agency was described in this article which said that the SEC had not uncovered the $8 billion financial scam executed by Allen Stanford even though they had investigated him four times between 1997 and 2004. To add insult to injury, the SEC official who "sat on various referrals" to investigate Stanford's operations eventually went to work for Stanford. Let's not even go into the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that the Commission failed to detect even though they had outsiders submitting proof to them, i.e. doing the SEC's job, that Madoff was a con artist. When will we learn that the government, as run by this political class, cannot solve any problem efficiently or effectively?

2) As we put our armed forces in mortal danger in Afghanistan, the same issue of The Week magazine reported that Afghanistan is now the biggest national producer of hashish in the world in addition to remaining the largest producer of opium in the world. The article reported that cultivation of hashish had migrated from the northern part of the country and was now prevalent throughout the rest of the country where the Taliban use it to finance their war against NATO and U.S. forces. Thus, not only does the political class have no solution for the war, their actions have aggravated another national issue, drug abuse. Our actions in this country will result in a rejuvenated international drug trade for years after our troops exit the country.

3) My monthly (June) issue of Reason Magazine showed up today and that is always good for some Bad and Ugly antics from today's politicians. A short article by Katherine Mangu-Ward described how the U.S. Department of Transportation would begin fining airlines per passenger for any runway flight delay lasting more than three hours. What a great idea, inconvenience passengers to the extreme by making them waste time in an idling plane for hours on end and pay the piper. But hold on, great idea, very bad implementation. First of all, the passengers that are so greatly inconvenienced would not see any of the fine money. The fines would be paid to and kept by the Federal government. Our suffering, their gain.

Second, there is a loophole for the airlines. The fines are not applied if the flight is canceled. For example, if a plane is on the runway for two hours and fifty minutes and will not get off before the three hour mark, the airline can cancel the flight on the spot, return to the terminal, and force all of the passengers to rebook on another flight. Thus, even if the flight would have taken off with the next twenty minutes, rather than incur a large fine, the airline would further inconvenience all of the passengers to avoid the government mandated fine, make them all deplane, find their luggage, and take another flight. Even when the political class has a good idea, it turns bad and they screw it up.

4) On a local political class level, Radley Balko had a short article about traffic light cameras installed at busy or problem intersections that videotape drivers who may be running red lights. The videotapes are reviewed and tickets issued for violators. The theory was if drivers knew that the cameras were watching, they would be less likely to drive dangerously. However, according to the article, a 2008 article in Florida Public Health Review published research results that traffic cameras actually increase crashes and injuries, negating the safety criteria for having them installed. A 2005 Washington Post found the same results, accidents go up when the cameras are installed. Similar studies found identical results in Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas. The conclusion from all of these studies is that it is better to extend the length of the yellow lights than to install traffic cameras from a safety perspective.

However, without traffic cameras, local politicians and local governments would not collect any traffic fines and thus, no one has removed the cameras. In fact, some cities have shortened the length of the yellow lights to catch more red light violators, putting average citizens more at risk of an accident and injuries, just to preserve and/or increase the money collected. When politicians care more about getting your money than providing for your safety, something has gone terribly bad.

5) And finally, despite economic and financial shortfalls in the city and state of New York, a New York Assemblyman has introduced a piece of legislation that would prohibit the use of salt in the preparation of restaurant meals. The bill would impose a $1,000 fine for each infraction. The world is falling apart and this elected official is worried about the salt content in restaurant food. Although it would be a good health idea for Americans to consume less salt in their diet, we do not need a politician legislating when and how much salt we should take in, especially if it is in regard to recipes. Trust us, political class, we can look out for ourselves when it comes to our salt intake. If you want to take a public service approach and convince us to use less salt, that's fine. But let us make the decision where and how much we take in. Why don't you go work on the bigger problems like failing public schools, drug abuse, skyrocketing deficits, high unemployment, etc.

These are some bad times when it comes to how we are treated by the political class. They want to regulate how our food is cooked, they want us to have more traffic accidents in order to collect more of our money, they allow us to suffer on waiting airplanes but collect the fines for themselves and force us to rebook flights for no reason, and they greatly aggravate one major problem (drug access and abuse) without successfully solving another major problem, the war in Afghanistan. These examples do not even touch on the other major issues facing the country, many of which are listed under the salt regulations example above. If this is The Bad, can you imagine how bad The Ugly will be tomorrow?


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