WSJ: The 'Paralyzing' Principle

WALL STREET JOURNAL/Review & Outlook, 6/21/2010 - The Gulf disaster rehabilitates a discredited idea. The Gulf oil spill is having all sorts of nasty consequences well beyond damage to the regional environment and economy. Not least, the resulting political panic seems to be rehabilitating the thoroughly discredited theory of regulation known as the precautionary principle. ∴ This principle holds that government should attempt to prevent any risk—regardless of the costs involved, however minor the benefits and even without understanding what those risks really are. Developed in the late 1960s, this theory served as the intellectual architecture for the Environmental Protection Agency, which is still required to eliminate certain environmental risks no matter how expensive or pointless the effort is. ∴ This same mentality is now prompting not merely tighter safety standards, but President Obama's moratorium on all new deep water drilling, shutting down dozens of Gulf and Alaskan projects, maybe permanently. Last month, 26 Democrats demanded that the government fold up BP's other major Gulf operation, Atlantis, "to ensure that the explosion and mishap of the Horizon platform are not replicated." Read more at WSJ...

Jim Huffman (R), candidate for U.S. Senate, commented on this article: We need policies that weigh and balance risks... Read More......

The Great 'Prevention' Myth

WASHINGTON POST, 8/14/2009 by Charles Krauthammer (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health-care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health-care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse. Read more at the Washington Post and find out why 'prevention' does not save money as Obama claims... (not that we're opposed to preventive medicine).

John says, "No matter how simplistic we make things, they are never simple." Read More......