Who needs elections once you’ve built and empowered unelected (mostly left-leaning and politicized) bureaucracies who function entirely, it seems, to increase their own reach and power?
Rhetorical question. No need to speculate if you don’t want to.
This is not the America I knew.
I haven’t seen that Holmes on Homes guy filling out any paperwork.
Criminal.
I say we lock the EPA in a room with the TSA and let them cornhole each other into oblivion.
Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, you are in their crosshairs. Don’t become a Toys R Us. Contribute to the machine now, submit and survive. The de facto way of political life.
They’re hell-bent on creating a black market on labor and services, aren’t they?
Let’s build a regulatory regime that prevents licensed contractors from practicing their trade. Result: lots of unlicensed contractors.
Now let’s build a regulatory regime that discourages licensed physicians from practicing their trade. Result: lots of freelance medicine.
Next, let’s build a regulatory regime that discourages anyone from practicing any trade at all. Result: lots of food stamp recipients who start packing on the pounds.
Short story.
We’re trying to open a new store. Rented a building, and began fixing it up. Then, attempted to pass inspections. THERE is a mystery. The roof? Well, apparently we needed a certified letter from the building’s owner that the roof was in good shape. Ok. did that. Got a reject letter from the city saying that’s NOT what we need. We now need a roofing company to inspect it. Tried to call the office and verify? Oh, no. There’s no one there to actually TAKE your calls. Emails were ignored, yada yada yada.
Meanwhile, weeks are passing when our store could open.
Honestly, every person working for a government body – from city council to president should be shot.
Carin. Have you considered writing that up as a post? Really detailing your run-ins with the bureaucrats?
I’d love to run it. It’s just so damn sad.
But, you know, we can all have CFL bulbs which mostly have mercury in them…No problem!
Seriously, the abatement of lead particulates would be a real concern in a high occupancy apartment building, government buildings, malls and such. But in individual homes it is asinine. Especially since lead based paints, solders, and all such materials have been banned for many years. It’s better no to sweat small stuff like this and concentrate on actual environmental problems and super-fund cleanups.
See, it’s as much about perpetuating an entity that was never needed, protecting people’s phony-baloney jobs as it is the overreach; and for the statists, that double-plus good!
Abolish the EPA!
You are correct, and I meant to get that same point across — namely, that the overreach is a function of protecting turf, and protecting turf means protecting their own jobs.
You said it far more clearly, Bob.
Nice to see more people adopting my take on the matter. 8-)
I remember reading once how difficult it is to set up a business in a third world country. It takes years to get all the permits and bribe the right officials, and even then you’re subject to the whim of some petty bureaucrat who’s palm you keep greasing but not as much as the brother in law who doesn’t want the competition.
Oh, they have all the reasons you can’t get the permits. Regulations so obtuse that no one can meet them and which leave them holding all the cards, but the bottom line is that corruption and nepotism rule the roost.
What it all means is that the rich are poor compared to freer countries, the middle class are almost non-existant and the poor are dirt poor. But hey, the rulers and their pals are quite rich.
This, of course, is what our “betters” want when they tell us we should be more like other countries.
Carin. Have you considered writing that up as a post? Really detailing your run-ins with the bureaucrats?
I’d love to run it. It’s just so damn sad
Sure. I’ll need my husband to detail it all more specifically.
When we moved our warehouse … that was a nightmare.
City Councils seem to have a disconnect between the idea that an empty building is BAD,and a business in said empty building (one that isn’t just paying rent for months and months w/o actually being able to DO BUSINESS) is a good thing.
And, every little bureaucrat with the ability to stop you in your tracks has a god complex… the fire dept, the OSHA, etc. It is just unbelievable. The idea that they work for you? Oh no. That’s now how it works. You’re evil, out to screw the public, who must be stopped.
The owner of the business where I work wanted to expand his parking lot to accommodate 12 cars.
The city specified, as per local EPA instructions that a runoff retaining basin must be dug a size equal to the over all size of the parking lot and be 4 feet deep. The only place for the basin was alongside the building.
Now that the lot and runoff basin are done, because of where the basin is, the North wall of the building is starting to pull away from the rest of the building.
What unmitigated horseshit.
I used to work for U.S. Geological Survey installing and maintaining ground and surface water gauging stations. We broke every rule OSHA had before lunch. EPA was trying very hard to be annoying but back then mostly bothered Magma Copper and Peabody Coal, not Mrs. Whoosit down the block.
This makes the SNL Spanish Inquisition bit not all that funny.
As anyone who has had to deal with a goobermint agency knows, the TSA is hardly unique…
Look, it’s a frickin’ embarrassment to smarter peoples’ progressive values to see dumber people rejecting them wholesale by moving out of MA, CA, RI, NY, CT etc, and consequently costing them not only productive tax base but also demographics losing them congressional districts. So you make it harder to move by making it hard to off load the house. If you’re dumb enough to have already paid for it yourself, ha ha.
Where words may fail, blows will avail.
this is what the American economy is reduced to anymore:
Can Easing California Regulations Boost Corn Ethanol?*