Lightbulb Police

The lightbulb police came to visit my wife's office last week. She was informed that the EPA had banned the manufacture of certain lightbulbs and that she would be required not only to purchase new "Al Gore" approved lightbulbs, but that all the fixtures in her office would have to be retrofitted to accommodate the new bulbs. Total cost to her business of several thousand dollars. In addition to the city and state grabbing for more, the Obama administration pushing for more, now the lightbulb police get into the act. Light bulbs, microwaves, toilet tanks used to be designed by industrial designers. Not any more. Today, the specifications for those and other items are written by some "green" bureaucrat in Washington, who then turns around and hands the bill to us. We used to have choices in many products, weighing price, functionality, and design. Today, the bureaucrats have decided that those features must take a back seat to "green" conformity. You see, she had other ideas about how to spend that money--raises for her loyal, hardworking employees, a new computer, maybe stash some more away for retirement. But no, some pointy headed bureaucrat had other ideas. This is exactly the kind of thing that continues to weigh on our economy. At a time when small businesses continue to strain and struggle, the bureaucracy continues to pile more bricks on the load, without any thought whatsover as to the costs they are imposing. Germany's unemployment rate is 7.1%. Did you ever think you'd see the day when we would envy Germany's unemployment rate? Are you beginning to see how that happened?