Most of us probably thought the feminist demand for so-called “comparable worth” legislation had died out sometime in the 1980s. The idea was that occupations traditionally held by women should have wage rates raised by government fiat in order to correspond with those of “comparable” male-dominated jobs. Surely no one is advancing this idea any longer. Surely!
We will never resort to a bailout, said the Bush administration concerning the financial failures of the Argentinian government. That was one week before the same administration arranged an $8 billion line of credit for the same government. Nobody believes it is going to do much good. By once again rewarding fiscal profligacy, the bailout postpones the day of reckoning and causes much to happen (to American taxpayers among many others).
Paul Krugman’s September 14 column in the New York Times contained more economic fallacies and hypocrisy than usual. It is a shame that a paper, where Henry Hazlitt applied Bastiat’s wisdom so well now carries a column by Krugman, who, week after week, preaches that breaking windows will bring us greater wealth.
In the weeks following the terror attacks, calls have come from politicians and journalists to “federalize” airport security by making workers who screen passengers and baggage government employees. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and others in Congress have declared that “passengers won’t feel safe again” unless the government takes this step.
This past September, the state government of South Carolina came under fire for issuing a special license plate bearing the slogan “Choose Life.” Affronted abortion-rights groups quickly filed suit, claiming that the state was violating the first and fourteenth amendments by failing to offer a “Choose Choice” or similar specialty plate. Florida’s and Louisiana’s “Choose Life” plates faced similar court challenges.
The terrorist attack in September did immense damage to life and property, damage which the federal government has compounded with its wartime response, which has come at the expense of the freedom of the American people. The very merit of freedom itself has been called into question. If the terrorists desired to do maximum damage, they would have hoped for just such a response.
With the Microsoft antitrust suit near a final settlement, it is a good time to take an entirely new direction in antitrust. That new direction ought to be its complete elimination. Its underlying concepts in economics and political philosophy need to be thoroughly discredited, and the legislation on which antitrust rests in practice needs to be repealed.
And you thought the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was only for fat cats! The hired help on the Potomac, many of whom reluctantly approved a piddly little tax cut this summer, are going to give a new meaning, over the next few years, to that wonderful principle of fiscal skullduggery and political mountebankery called “making the rich pay.”
The controversy is as old as the Great Society. So why bring up the fluoridation question again? Well, my county in Florida just voted to fluoridate the water supply. Actually, the government officials in my county who are responsible for such things voted for it—neither I nor my neighbors were ever asked to vote on anything.
