Today, we will look at a hodgepodge of screwed up government priorities from around the country, proving that the political class in Washington DC does not have a monopoly when it comes to irrational priorities. Many of the following examples come from the past two editions of Reason magazine (www.reason.com) and one comes from an Associated Press article. Since several of the following examples come from the state of California, keep in mind that the state government in California is facing about a $20 billion budget shortfall for the next budget cycle. This shortfall will likely result in draconian cuts to the number of state employees and state services. One would think that the political class in California would be focusing on streamlining their budget in order to make the budget cuts as painless as possible but...
- The San Francisco city council recently passed an ordinance, as reported by an Associated Press article today, requiring cell phone vendors and retailers to publicly post a sign in their store that documents the amount of radiation that is given off by each of the phone models they sell. They are requiring this signage even though the industry trade association and a recently completed and major United Nations study both concluded that there is no radiation danger from using cell phones. So, the state is awash in red ink, many teachers, firefighters, and police in San Francisco and elsewhere in the state are likely to lose their jobs shortly across and the city council is actively working an issue that is likely not an issue. The pathetic thing about this ordinance is that 1) most people coming into the stores will probably not even notice the radiation sign (a phenomenon that occurred when NYC required restaurants to post the nutritional value of the meals served, most people in a follow up survey did not recall even seeing the sign, 2) those that see the sign will likely not read it (source: same restaurant study in NYC) and 3) people will still buy the phone they want based on price, features, style, and availability. The only losers in this scenario are the customers who somehow will end up paying for the unneeded radiation signs the stores are required to post but which will have no impact.
- Staying in California, a car wash owner in Sacramento, Aaron Zeff, claimed that he was paid a visit by two, not one, IRS agents recently because he owed back taxes. The amount owed turned out to be $.04 from 2006. Zeff also claimed that this was the first time that the IRS told him of the shortfall, with my assumption being that he would have paid the back taxes if the IRS had sent him a letter rather than wasting hundreds if not thousands of dollars in salaries of two physical agents being dispatched to the field for a $.04 tax shortfall. Bernie Madoff gets away with the biggest Ponzi scheme for over a decade and the Federal government misses that one for so long but is right on top of delinquent car wash owners who owe $.04. (Source: Reason Magazine)
- Lets stay in California, the home of the $20 billion budget gap. The Santa Clara county Board of Supervisors has worked on and passed a law that bans toys from being given away with any meal with over 485 calories. It also bans restaurants from giving away a toy with any meal that has more than 600 milligrams of salt. Shouldn't parents be the determining factor of what and where and what toys their kids get? As with San Francisco, I would have hope the Santa Clara county government would be working on ways to minimize the budget deficit impact on their citizens rather than playing dietitian to the population. If the state and county go bankrupt, who cares what the kids are eating, at least in the short term? (Source: Reason magazine)
- In New Mexico, if state police troopers fail to write at least 100 tickets and make three DWI arrests each month, they face possible sanctions. The chief called it a "minimum performance standard" and not a quota. Shouldn't the New Mexico state police, or any police force, be more concerned with catching criminals, wherever they appear, rather than hunting down people to fill their "minimum performance standard?" Do New Mexico state police ignore other crimes towards the end of the month in order to fill their quota? One would think that the job of any police force is to stop crime wherever it occurs and not go looking for only certain types of criminals. (Source: Reason magazine)
- Back to the Federal wing of the political class. In 2006, the U.S. government passed a law that basically made it unlawful to manage or run an online Internet betting process such as online poker. For four years no one had been arrested. This law made the U.S. the only major country in the world that outlawed the business of online gambling. Recently, a major operator of online gambling from Australia was arrested on a visit to Las Vegas and is charged with violating the anti-gambling law. Given that the Christmas Day underwear bomber almost blew up a plane over Detroit last December and the Times Square bomber almost blew up a bomb in New York recently, one would have hoped that the U.S. Attorney Generals and law enforcement across the nation would be working on those types of problems and not one of Internet gambling. Americans love to gamble and should be allowed to do it wherever they want, making the law itself a misplaced priority to begin with. To use law enforcement resources to execute the law when there are so many other dangers facing the country is just another example of a screwed up priority. (Source: Reason magazine)
- The Utah state legislature is hard at work on a piece of legislation that will decriminalize the collection of rain water. Yes, it is a crime in Utah to collect the rain as it falls from the sky. The proposed new law would allow citizens to collect rainwater in underground tanks and barrels but... they would have to register their collection activities with the state and tell it how much water they collected. You cannot make this stuff up when it comes to screwed up government programs. (Source: Reason magazine)
Given what we have written about the past three days, please do not let anyone tell you that they cannot cut government spending anymore. Screwed up priorities such as the ones we have reviewed, government functions that do not do their jobs but draw a paycheck (e.g., the SEC employees who constantly searched the Internet for pornography during work hours while the economy crashed, the Federal oil rig safety employees that did the same Internet pornography searching while neglecting their safety inspection duties, government product safety employees that allowed lead and cadmium products to be imported into the country for use by kids and also allowed unsafe Toyota products into the market for years, etc.), and politicians that give away our money in return for campaign donations are just a short list of the many screwed up government priorities. When you are worried about having a government process for tracking the collection of rain water, you know we have fallen down the rabbit hole into another world, a world of screwed up priorities.
Again, that is why November is so critical to our nation and our pocket books. The current crop of politicians, at all levels of government, work on programs and projects that are really out of touch with reality and all incumbents that work on these issues need to be kicked out of office. They need to be replaced by new people with their heads screwed on straight in order to cut the waste, downsize government and get the remaining employees and government functions laser focused on real priorities that influence the most Americans lives.
Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
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