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Last Updated: Jul 16, 2008 - 3:13:20 PM |
What is the only one law that works every time?
Looking at some of the challenges we face today, I believe we’ll discover a large percentage of them are caused by solutions to problems caused by earlier solutions.
Take our energy problem. We have vast resources of oil we can’t tap. We have the ability to build safe nuclear plants, but we haven’t built a new plant in a generation. We haven’t built a refinery in more than 30 years, and the ones we have are forced to make a bewildering assortment of blends to meet the maze of regulations legislated in various states. Yet every time we pressure Saudi Arabia or Mexico to increase production, aren’t we saying increased production lowers prices?
Since these real-world answers are denied us, what’s the solution our leaders design? Another law, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which forces oil companies to mix ever-higher levels of ethanol with gasoline, diverting our food supply to make fuel, causing the cost of food to skyrocket, sparking anxiety at home and riots abroad while doing nothing to lower energy costs. But don’t worry; Congress isn’t done with this solution yet, so here come wind-fall profit taxes, increases in food stamps, more international food aid, and in the future we can look forward to cap-and-trade legislation while the price of energy keeps rising. I think I’ve finally figured out America’s energy policy: to manufacture and perpetuate an energy crisis.
Another example is McCain-Feingold, or the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). This is an attempt make elections fair by controlling who can say what about who when, which sounds like a comedy bit by Abbot and Costello. This bill was passed in 2002 with the stated goal of reducing the power of special interest groups. How has this theory worked out in practice? To close the existing loopholes in bills already on the books, which restrict who can say what when, it created a larger loophole through which danced the now famous 527s such as Moveon.org. Instead of solving the problem, BCRA actually increases the power of special interests and reduces accountability by encouraging groups to hide who they really are while increasing the almost inevitable re-election of incumbents. Then there’s the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This seeks to set objective standards so that failing schools are identified and improved. Sounds good so far, doesn’t it? In reality it mandates the use of standardized tests to find these objective standards, which results in administrators directing teachers to teach to the test. What a surprise! Test scores come up as the students memorize, regurgitate, and forget lists of facts while other educational goals are left by the wayside, including music, art, and critical thinking. This test-focused mentality means that teachers have to concentrate on the broad middle where many students can move from failing to passing as the two ends of the spectrum, the gifted and the challenged, are left on their own. Schools also manufacture strategies such as transferring low performers to Special Ed just before the test, where they have alternative goals, then transferring them back after the test.
If a school fails to meet the standards for four consecutive years, it becomes eligible for what the law calls corrective action. This is actually the take-over of the school by the state. The state is then responsible for finding alternative management, while through chronic under-funding, these mandates leave the local board to pick up the tab for the old administration as well as the new management. The law gives no precise details on how this new management is to solve the problem. However, it does accomplish one thing; it removes the local control of the schools, which has always been a hallmark of American education, replacing it with outside bureaucrats who are not accountable to local taxpayers. I seem to remember something about “taxation without representation.” With solutions like these, we can’t stand any more problems; or is it with problems like these we can stand any more solutions? Or does it matter?
Oh yes, what’s the only law that works every time? The law of unintended consequences.
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