In the private economy, the small business owner is either making money or looking for work. There is no “grade inflation” or “social promotion” in the real world of small business. In contrast, when it comes to government performing basic functions, voters too often accept, coddle and put up with incompetence. Sometimes, the voters even reward failure by public officials by increasing their budgets.
It seems like just about every week there is another news article outlining the specifics of government officials “not watching the store.” This became stunningly clear as I was reading “Theodore Rex,” Edmund Morris’ absorbing biography of President Theodore Roosevelt. TR was a man who wanted to get things done. TR’s hero was Lincoln who believed that government should do only those things that people could not do themselves. In one instance in the book, Morris explains how President Roosevelt, responding to scandalous conditions in meatpacking plants, had sponsored and signed into law the Pure Food and Drug Act.
At the same time that I was reading the TR biography, I picked up the Sacramento Bee and read “Ag Chief Opposes Ban on Downer Cattle” (2/29/08), in which Edward T. Schafer, Secretary of Agriculture, told a Senate Committee that “downer cattle” – those too sick or injured to walk – could occasionally enter the nation’s food supply. The hearing was held in response to a video showing workers at Westland/Hallmark Meat Company plant in Chino shoving and kicking sick, crippled cattle and forcing them to stand using electric prods, forklifts and water hoses. Downer cattle pose a higher risk of E coli, salmonella contamination or mad cow disease. Instead of standing up for the health of Americans, Secretary Schafer, our so-called “public servant,” is standing up for the short-term interests of Big Agriculture. His actions have not ensured public safety, the essence of his job, but instead, weakened the confidence of Americans in the safety of our food supply.
The other major example of government officials “not watching the store” is in the home mortgage markets. Amazingly, government regulators allowed the creation of a wild speculating market in home mortgages in which purchasers could obtain a loan with no money down and weak credit histories. This “pyramid scheme,” is now crashing not only on the greedy speculators and banks but also on average citizens who have dutifully paid their mortgages on time every month. The value of homes has declined on average about 25%. Thanks to a government asleep at the wheel, inflation is rising and the dollar is declining, which is eroding the purchasing power and savings of hard-working citizens who have played by the rules. In enacting the so-called “stimulus bill,” we go into further debt in a lame attempt to goose the economy. We pretend that dropping dollars from an airplane will somehow strengthen our economy. Now, the U.S. Congress and Federal Reserve are bailing out the big investment banks that made a lot of money in the past few years selling mortgages that weren’t worth the paper they were written on. The average taxpayer is getting stuck with the bill.
Why didn’t our public officials make rules that assured stability in the mortgage market in the first place? Those negligent in their duties who created this financial melt-down should be brought to public account to reimburse the Treasury and tax-payers.
We need to elect government officials who will get back to the basics of protecting public safety. They should act like the small business owner who must mind the store or go out of business. The time for coddling failure is over.
Kevin Hanley serves on the Auburn City Council and as Chief Consultant on health and insurance legislation with the California Legislature. Send your comments to Kevin at
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"Public Servant" indeed!! Servant of Big Ag is more like it. What would they do with all those sick cows, any way? Burn them and pollute the air? Bury them and pollute the groundwater? Ship them off to "el tercer mundo" where it's OK to sell such cattle?