Tuesday, May 04, 2004
 
Doing It For The Children Bureaucrats

Good news: The Missouri Legislature has begun the process of eliminating emissions tests required for automobile licensing in the St. Louis area. As cars become cleaner, these tests' burden, in terms of resident money and time spent, have not yielded that many results. The sponsor says:
    Bill sponsor Rep. Jim Lembke, R-south St. Louis County, said the testing is unnecessary, unpopular and a burden to the elderly and poor. He said the program should be eliminated because 92 percent of all vehicles pass the test and the biggest polluters - motorcycles and many trucks - are exempt from the law.
Good work. Hey, I once met Lembke, back when he was running unsuccessfully for the position he now holds. He was canvassing door-to-door, and I had to hammer him a bit on conservative consistency--particularly his love of "incentives" to draw industry to Lemay, but his opposition to welfare and government handouts to individuals. But enough about me.

The bad news: opposition invokes a scattering of silly reasons to keep the program running:
    Rep. Barbara Fraser, D-University City, said ending the clean-air testing could exacerbate the symptoms of allergy sufferers and would mean the loss of 250 jobs.
Got that? A slightly runnier nose and throwing 250 hard-working bureaucrats into the private workforce. Oh, the horror, the horror!

Politicians like this think you can legislate full employment by creating enough government regulations and divisions and offices. It got us out of the Greast Depression, didn't it?

Hmm, no, I think that was the techno-military-industrial complex gearing up for WWII, not the CCC. But hey, I was less alive than the Baby Boomers were to experience it first hand. What would I know?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:25 PM
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