Archive for August 9th, 2006
Imagine if an evil business routinely deprived us of products that would help us live longer with less pain and more comfort. We’d be outraged, and lawyers would line up to sue. Yet something similar happens today, thanks to lawsuit abuse. Makers of all kinds of products are afraid to sell them to us because one lawsuit could ruin them.Personal-injury lawyers claim they make America safer, but that’s a myth. It’s easy to see who benefits from those big damage awards we read about. Less obvious — but just as real — are the things we’d all like to have but never will get because of this climate of fear. Here are a few examples.
Monsanto once developed a substitute for asbestos — a new fire-resistant form of insulation that might save thousands of lives. But Monsanto decided not to sell it for fear of liability. Richard F. Mahoney, the CEO at the time, said, “There may well have been a safe, effective asbestos replacement on the market, and now there isn’t.”
Why do we have to worry about shortages of flu vaccine? Because only a handful of companies still make it. And why is that? Because when you vaccinate millions of people, some get sick and sue. Between 1980 and 1986, personal-injury lawyers demanded billions of dollars from vaccine manufacturers. That scared many American drug companies out of the business.
Bill Online Easily, Fast & Free with PayPal. No Software Needed. Sign Up Now!
There are many reasons to be opposed to big government. Today I am going to touch on one – wasteful spending & fraud. As government grows larger the incidents of waste and fraud grow with it. In fact, I would venture to say waste and fraud grows exponentially as government grows. The reason is that oversight and control becomes much more difficult. I am going to list a couple examples of spending that got out of control, compliments of an investigation by the Government Accounting Office. The examples are from the article 532 bottles of (tax-funded) beer on the wall. Follow this link for the entire article.
- Officials at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy did better than that. Between last August and March, they brewed and consumed 532 bottles — courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. A six-pack of the Coast Guard’s brew, GAO calculated, cost more than $13 to make.
- GAO’s July testimony also revealed, for example, that officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) used charge cards to purchase 200 laptop computers at a cost of $300,000, for use in relief work in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA, however, did not properly record where the computers went.
This waste and fraud was made possible by the increased use of government issued credit cards. A practice that was increased tremendously by President Clinton in 1994.
In 1994, federal employees spent $1 billion on government charge cards. By 2003, 325,000 federal employees carried the cards and used them to spend $16.4 billion.
If decision making was decentralized and returned to the local level it would be much more difficult for these types of abuses to occur. The next time a new government agency is proposed it is up to the voters to JUST SAY NO!
Netflix Delivers DVDs to your home. NO LATE FEES. Try for FREE!
Now you can proudly show your support for Tom Suozzi and real reform in New York State. Let the world know that Spitzer is the choice of the status quo. The image below is just one of many different t shirts and sweatshirts available. Coffee mugs and a stein are also available and make great gifts! Click here to view all products. CafePress gives a 30-day 100% money back guarantee.
