CompuServe Messages

Gee, I don't recall myself demanding "immediate 100% success" in welfare reform. To the contrary. I've said the current system, flawed as it is, probably will never go away entirely, because it's the cheapest system available overall, which makes it a winner among politicians of all stripes, no matter what they would have you believe, never minding its serious down side. As for the corrupted work ethic: it's not just the result of declining personal and family values, but also declining institutional and, yes, corporate values. Businesses dump long-standing workers in the interests of efficiency and then expect those hopelessly unemployable middle-agers to keep a stiff upper lip and to believe in the system, while local economies adjust without pain. Air traffic control is like broadcast regulation. Because of the nature of the technology, you either do it on a macro scale or you don't do it. Air control is actually an international system, run in the US by the FAA. Same with broadcast regulation, which is international in scope and run in the US by the FCC. Same with communications satellites. If states ran air traffic control, we'd have lots more crashes. If states could place and operate communications satellites, we'd have satellites crashing into one another. The NRC is a flawed organization, in part because the DOE was all goofed up by its contradictory need to oversee nuclear weapons development, but to suggest private ventures could run nukes without some oversight agency is to flirt with disaster. I used to work for a company that runs two nuclear power plants. Those plants had among the best and safest operating records of any nuclear plants in the world, and yet the NRC inspectors every so often found serious operating or security violations. Beyond that, the NRC *depends* on states to help carry out its mission. States are already licensed by the NRC to handle some radiation safety; my brother is a state worker who drills to handle nuclear plant disasters, which work is overseen by the NRC. The NRC even pays for his training, but he's a state worker. However, states by themselves probably could not afford to monitor nuclear safety; nor would a state by state regulatory system be very comforting. What say if Mississippi legislators decided to skimp on the state nuclear regulatory budget one year? Similarly, if we had a national system of AFDC payments, we'd cut down enormously on wasteful welfare migration. Wisconsin, for instance, pays higher (though still poverty-level) child benefits than, say, Texas. So all other things being equal, a smart and logical welfare recipient in Texas would in his or her enlightened self interest immediately move to Wisconsin or some similar state. And, indeed, there is a certain amount of welfare in-migration to states that pay higher benefits. Further, some low-benefit states actually encourage out-migration. This is a lousy set-up. States' rights are all well and good, but principle is a poor excuse for paying no attention to common sense goals and pragmatic approaches.