E. coli conservatives

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This is an article from this past Sunday's LA Times (July 20, 2008), about the idea of "E. coli conservatives", a term coined by historian Rick Perlstein, author of "Nixonland".

The article is written by Eric Lotke, a research director for the Campaign for America's Future, a research and policy organization.

Once in power, E. coli conservatives shrink government by hamstringing it. They weaken rules that protect people, slash the budgets of consumer agencies and appoint industry friends to oversight commissions. The result: Some government regulatory agencies that we trust to protect us have shrunk to insignificance or serve private industry rather than consumers.

(...)

But E. coli conservatism is not limited to the food supply. Before the salmonella outbreak, there were major recalls of pet food (contaminated by melamine) and toys (lead paint). The agency that's supposed to protect us from toxic toys is the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a job made tougher because its resources have been cut. The commission's 2007 budget was half its 1974 budget in real dollars. Staffing is in free fall, dropping from 978 in 1980 to 420 in 2007. The testing labs have not been modernized since 1975, and the 2008 budget request removed the reduction of childhood drowning deaths as a strategic goal because of "resource limitations." The agency's entire toy-testing department last year consisted of one man who dropped toys on his office floor to see if they broke.

(...)

There are many other examples of E. coli conservatism at work. In 2000-2001, energy deregulation in California opened the door for Enron and similar companies to artificially limit the supply of electricity to the state, driving up prices and creating rolling blackouts. Financial deregulation helped create the housing bubble by allowing companies to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford the payments. The surging commodities markets and the swooning stock markets are in part caused by rule changes, made in the name of deregulation, that make it easier to speculate on price swings. It was recently learned that the three main credit-rating agencies -- Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings -- failed to rein in conflicts of interest in their ratings practices. Among the problems: Companies issuing securities were paying the ratings agencies for their rating.

Enough. Instead of talking about the size of government, we should be debating how to make our government more effective. How many more people have to get sick before the government reclaims its mission to serve the people?

Los Angeles Times

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1. Morning kick. n/t