The Boundless Stupidity of State Governments

I’m an over-protective parent. Even now, with my kids ranging between 18 and 23, I will try to herd them together while skiing so I can follow them down the slopes and watch for potential injuries. And I never got them a jungle gym when they were young, even though I somehow managed to survive childhood with one in my backyard.

But at least I recognize what I’m doing. And I certainly would never consider imposing my mother-hen impulses on the overall population.

I’m not surprised to discover, however, that bureaucrats in New York wanted to go way overboard with regulations to ban just about anything with even tiny risks of injury. This list included things such as archery and rock climbing, which might cause me to fret, but also things such as (I’m not joking) kickball and tag.

With those standards, you may as well require kids to be enclosed in bubble wrap every morning.

The only good news is that people found out about the state’s regulatory overreach and the government was forced to cancel the rules after widespread mockery.

Here are some excerpts from a story by NBC in New York.

Day camp games like tag, wiffle ball, Red Rover and kickball are no longer at risk in New York after state health officials yanked a proposal that threatened the future of those mainstays of child’s play.

Towns, villages and other camp operators had begun revamping upcoming indoor summer programs after the Department of Health sent out a long list of familiar games and activities it said presented a “significant risk of injury” and needed to be regulated more closely.

…On Tuesday, Richie, a Republican whose district includes three mostly rural north-central New York counties, said she was pleased by the reversal.

“At a time when our nation’s No. 1 health concern is childhood obesity, I am very happy to see that someone in state government saw we should not be adding new burdensome regulations by classifying tag, Red Rover and Wiffle Ball as dangerous activities,” she said. “I am glad New York’s children can continue to steal the bacon and play flag football and enjoy other traditional rites of summer.”

The proposal would have revised the definition of a summer day camp to include potentially risky organized indoor group activities like archery and rock climbing — as well as things like kickball, tag and Wiffle Ball.

Ritchie said that would have required camps in many smaller towns and villages to add staff such as nurses and pay $200 for a state permit. Other critics argued the regulation was a hysterical approach that stood to take all the fun out of summer.

Read Full Post »

Obama Hypocrisy Is Disgusting, but Unsurprising

I don’t like it when politicians pass laws that undermine the freedom and prosperity of the American people. But I really hate it when politicians pass those laws and exempt themselves.

Years ago, as a lowly Senate staffer, I recall watching a debate about whether politicians were going to increase fuel economy regulations and thus force people into cars that were smaller, less convenient, and less safe. One good Senator, I think perhaps Don Nickles of Oklahoma, offered an amendment that basically would have forced bigwigs on Capitol Hill to live by the same rules by requiring limousines for congressional leaders to meet the same onerous restrictions. Needless to say, the arrogant political class thought this was absurd and to this day they get driven in luxury gas guzzlers (paid for by you and me).

We now have another version of this laws-for-thee-but-not-for-me mentality from the Obama Administration. No, I’m not talking about Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary who is in charge of the Internal Revenue Service but got a free pass after illegally hiding $80,000 of income from the IRS. I’m talking about the President and his personal fleet of limousines.

He wants us to abide by rules that will be expensive and lower the quality of cars, but those rules won’t apply to him. Here’s what the Detroit News reported.

The U.S. Secret Service said today that some federal vehicles for law enforcement and security purposes will be exempt from President Barack Obama’s directive that all federal vehicles purchased starting 2015 be advanced technology models. Secret Service spokesman Robert Novy said the directive wouldn’t apply to vehicles used for some law enforcement or security reasons by various federal agencies. …That would include the GM-built Cadillac presidential limousine and other vehicles in the motorcade. It also expected to include many law enforcement vehicles.

Not surprisingly, this is completely contrary to what the President said he would do, as noted elsewhere in the article. Unless, of course, you think “100 percent” means something other than “100 percent.”

Obama announced the plan this week to “green” the federal fleet. “I’m directing our departments and our agencies to make sure 100 percent of the vehicles they buy are fuel-efficient or clean energy cars and trucks by 2015.Not 50 percent, not 75 percent — 100 percent of our vehicles,” Obama said today at an appearance in Landover, Md., at UPS facility to urge private companies to green their vehicle fleets.

Read Full Post »

How Government Condemned Us to Dirty Clothes by Mandating Sub-Standard Washing Machines

Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has a withering critique of dumb government policies that have taken away our freedom to buy low-cost and effective washing machines and instead forced us to buy expensive machines that don’t do a good job of cleaning our clothes.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that politicians are undermining our quality of life. These are the same jackasses, after all, that are in the process of requiring us to use crummy light bulbs. And they’ve already coerced us into ridiculous “low-flow” toilets that don’t work very well if you happen to…um…deposit something that reminds you of Washington.

Here’s an excerpt from Sam’s column, but read the whole piece since he also discusses how the Senate wants to make a bad situation even worse, and he also reveals how corrupt big businesses favor these mandates so they can eliminate low-cost options.

…for decades the top-loading laundry machine was the most affordable and dependable. Now it’s ruined—and Americans have politics to thank.

…The culprit is the federal government’s obsession with energy efficiency. Efficiency standards for washing machines aren’t as well-known as those for light bulbs, which will effectively prohibit 100-watt incandescent bulbs next year. Nor are they the butt of jokes as low-flow toilets are. But in their quiet destruction of a highly affordable, perfectly satisfactory appliance, washer standards demonstrate the harmfulness of the ever-growing body of efficiency mandates.

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.

…Front-loaders meet federal standards more easily than top-loaders. Because they don’t fully immerse their laundry loads, they use less hot water and therefore less energy. But, as Americans are increasingly learning, front-loaders are expensive, often have mold problems, and don’t let you toss in a wayward sock after they’ve started.

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.

…even though these newer types of washers cost about twice as much as conventional top-loaders, overall they didn’t clean as well as the 1996 models.

…We know that politics can be dirty. Who’d have guessed how literal a truth this is?

Hat tip to Advice Goddess.

Read Full Post »

Rand Paul Speaks for America, Grills Obama Hack about Real Freedom of Choice

This is beautiful. It’s so refreshing to have a handful of Republicans who actually understand that their job is promoting freedom.

Read Full Post »

GOP Congressman Gives Good Speech against New Government-Mandated Toxic Lightbulbs

Regular readers of this blog already know (see here, here, and here) that I’m not a big fan of the new “CFL” light bulbs that we will be forced to use in a couple of years.

In a more entertaining fashion, here’s a video from a few years ago, featuring a Republican Congressman railing against the new bulbs.

Repealing the idiotic mandate for these inferior bulbs should be a gimme for the new Republican majority. Somehow, though, I predict they’ll screw up and leave the requirement in place.

Read Full Post »

Poetic (and Smelly) Justice for San Francisco

Since I believe in federalism and decentralization, I tend to be somewhat tolerant of stupid decisions by local governments – particularly when those choices are made thousands of miles away and I don’t have to deal with the consequences.

With this in mind, I find it rather amusing that San Francisco is now plagued by sewer smells as a result of mandates for low-flow toilets. The article doesn’t explain what rules the city imposed, but I assume they are even worse than the federal rules (if you want a good laugh about the federal law, this Dave Barry column is worth reading).

Reading the excerpt below, part of me hopes for a dry summer and that the city’s politicians all live near AT&T Park.

San Francisco’s big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink. Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months. The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem. Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite – better known as bleach – to act as an odor eater and to disinfect the city’s treated water before it’s dumped into the bay. It will also be used to sanitize drinking water.

Read Full Post »

The Best Super Bowl Commercial of 2011

I don’t know if this commercial was broadcast nationally, but I saw it in northern Virginia. A very smart, anti-politician message.

The worst commercial (this is a no-brainer) was from Chrysler. Not because the advertising was bad, but because the company is mooching from the taxpayers.

Read Full Post »

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Government-Subsidized Happiness in Brazil

One of the many great things about America’s Founding Fathers is that the Declaration of Independence refers to “unalienable rights” including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But there’s not even a suggestion that it is the job of government to provide happiness.

Brazil’s politicians have a different view of such matters. They’re considering an amendment to the nation’s Constitution that would create a similar right, but with the expectation that it would be the job of government to provide happiness.

There are two huge problems with this approach. First, government can’t give something to one person without first taking it from another. So if politicians decide that this new “right” to happiness means more redistribution of food and housing (things supposedly “guaranteed” by the Brazilian Constitution already), then that means more government coercion through the tax system. Second, happiness isn’t achieved by being a moocher. Dependency breeds resentment, not joy.

It would be simple to dismiss this proposal as a hollow political stunt, but there actually are many things that Brazil’s government could do to open doors for the poor, such as enforcing property rights, opening markets, deregulating the economy, and lowering tax rates. Then poor people would have the ability to achieve true happiness by improving their own lives rather than kowtowing for crumbs from a corrupt political elite.

Here’s a report on Brazil’s Orwellian happiness proposal.

…a bill to amend Brazil’s Constitution to make the search for happiness an inalienable right is widely expected to be approved soon by the Senate, which reconvened Tuesday. The bill would then go to the lower house. …supporters say the happiness bill is a serious undertaking despite the revelry, meant to address Brazil’s stark economic and social inequalities. “In Brazil, we’ve had economic growth without the social growth hoped for,” said Mauro Motoryn, the director of the Happier Movement, a non-governmental organization backing the legislation. “With the constitutional amendment, we want to provoke discussion, to seek approval for the creation of conditions in which social rights are upheld.” Similar explorations of officially finding happiness have been pushed by other governments. Both Japan and South Korea include the right to happiness in their constitutions, and earlier this month, the British government detailed plans to begin a $3 million project to measure citizens’ well being. …The bill before Brazil’s Congress would insert the phrase “pursuit of happiness” into Article 6 of the constitution, which states that education, health, food, work, housing, leisure and security – among other issues – are the social rights of all citizens.

Read Full Post »

The Nanny State Runs Amok, Asks Americans How Much Time They Spend “Sitting on Toilet”

Dana Milbank is a snarky leftist who writes for the Washington Post, but I have to give him credit for an amusing column today about the new big-brother diet guidelines from our incompetent federal government. Here are a few excerpts.

In the late 1970s, before the government began telling us what to eat, 15 percent of adults and 4 percent of children were obese. Now, after 30 years of Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guidelines, 34 percent of adults and 20 percent of children are obese. …Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was a nutrition evangelist Monday morning as he rolled out the latest version of the dietary guidelines at George Washington University. …Vilsack said he can help fellow Americans to do the same – as long as they are willing to share with the government a few intimate details about themselves, such as how much they weigh, every morsel of food that passes their lips, and how they occupy themselves every minute of the day and night. …Undoubtedly, Americans would be healthier if they would follow the recommendations, but this sounds like TMI at the USDA. Using the drop-down “activity” menu on the website, you are asked to enter how many minutes a day you do such things as “dressing/undressing,” “sitting on toilet,” “sleeping,” “sitting quietly and watching television,” “slow dancing,” “singing in church,” “casino gambling,” “coal mining,” “washing dishes,” “wrestling” and “butchering animals.”

Read Full Post »

Frivolous Lawsuit Gives New Meaning to ‘Just Say No’

What do you do when your kids clamor for something you don’t think they should have? For most (good) parents, the obvious answer is to “just say no.” For others, it’s to sue!

With perfect Grinch timing, a consumer group has sued McDonald’s demanding that it take the toys out of its Happy Meals.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, claims it violates California law for the hamburger chain to make its meals too appealing to kids, thus launching them on a lifelong course to overeating and other health horrors. It’s representing an allegedly typical mother of two from Sacramento named Monet Parham. What’s Parham’s (so to speak) beef? “Because of McDonald’s marketing, [her daughter] Maya has frequently pestered Parham into purchasing Happy Meals, thereby spending money on a product she would not otherwise have purchased.”

You’re probably wondering: How is this grounds for a lawsuit? No one forced Parham to take her daughters to McDonald’s, buy them that particular menu item, and sit by as they ate every last French fry in the bag (if they did).

No, she’s suing because when she said no, her kids became disagreeable and “pouted” – for which she wants class action status. If she gets it, McDonald’s isn’t the only company that should worry. Other kids pout because parents won’t get them 800-piece Lego sets, Madame Alexander dolls and Disney World vacations. Are those companies going to be liable too?

Let’s hope the judge is better at saying ‘no’ than Ms. Parham. Though, as Walter Olson goes on to point out, this is anything but a random, inadequately equipped parent:

Much of the interviewing press was happy to treat Monet Parham as a random (if oddly well-informed) California mom, but it didn’t take the blogosphere long to discover that she is apparently anything but random. Ira Stoll, who blogs at Future of Capitalism and used to put out the New York Times-tweaking smartertimes.com, soon discovered (via a commenter) that she is in fact the same person as Monet Parham-Lee, who is a “regional program manager” on the state of California payroll for child nutrition matters.

Specifically, she works on a federally funded program that campaigns to exhort people to eat their vegetables and that sort of thing.

…If you sense a campaign in progress, you’re right. At the moment it happens to be centered on California, where both San Francisco and suburban Marin County have passed laws against Happy Meals. And California also has a distinctively liberal consumer law under which far-fetched claims like this one, which might be hooted down elsewhere, regularly get consideration in court.

Read Full Post »