Colin McNickle At Large

Government at its worst (but one bright spot)

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Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto says selling the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA), which is on a dive-bomb approach to collapse, to a private entity is off the table.

 
That, after a consultant hired to study the absolute mess that is the PWSA, called the operation the “largest irrigation system in the country” because it loses more than half its water.

 
The system is “on its last leg,” the consultant said. It will take billions – billions with a “b” and plural – in long-term infrastructure fixes. One recent estimate put the price tag at $5 billion.

 
Peduto admits the PWSA has suffered through “decades of disinvestment and neglect.” Government tends to do that to public services. “Local political games-playing” is how Allegheny Institute scholars Frank Gamrat and Jake Haulk put it this past July (in Policy Brief Vol 17, No. 29).

 
They say state Public Utility Commission oversight, approved by the House and awaiting Senate consideration, could go a long way in salvaging the PWSA.

 
The consultant also called the authority a “failed organization atop a dangerous and crumbling structure.” Then there’s “operational apathy.” Let’s not forget the “absence of skill sets” necessary to run the show.

 
Yet the mayor automatically takes privatization off the table? Consider that public policy nonfeasance. For it is painfully obvious that government hasn’t gotten the job done – for decades.

 
Here we go again: Government-types say there’s a burgeoning market for lamb in Southwestern Pennsylvania. So, in an attempt to prime the pump for lamb production, federal, state and local agencies are teaming up to fund a $3.5 million program to promote it, among other “farm-to-table” initiatives.

 
There’s growing demand and pricey prices for lamb meat, a Post-Gazette story tells us. So, public money is needed to do what the marketplace should do on its own?

 
As 19th-century British scholar Herbert Spencer reminded most adroitly, the proper role of government is “not to regulate commerce; not to educate people; not to teach religion; not to administer charity … but simply to defend the natural rights of man – to protect person and property – to prevent the aggressions of the powerful upon the weak – in a word to administer justice. This is the natural, the original, office of a government. It was not intended to do less: it ought not to be allowed to do more.”

 
That would include picking the public’s pocket in an attempt to juice a lamb market that the market loudly is bleating requires no juicing, based on demand and based on prices.

 

Let’s take this to the extreme:

 
One can only imagine that such a program is rolled out.

 
Then one can imagine that the promotion subsidies lead to more lamb production.

 
Then one can imagine that lamb producers begin to complain about too much product depressing prices.

 
Then one can imagine lamb producers complaining to the government.

 
Then one can imagine government-types riding to the rescue.

 
Lamb price supports!

 
Which will encourage continued excessive production.

 
Which will result in too much lamb at depressed prices and, oh, you get the picture.

 
If there’s a demand for lamb not being met – and excess processing capacity (as the PG story suggests) — it’s not up to taxpayers to balance the equation. That’s up to lamb producers and the processors to work it out on their own.

 
Well, isn’t it?

 
Now, to the bright spot:

 
Allegheny County boaters, take note. We commend to your attention Article I, Section 8, of the Pennsylvania Constitution:

 
“The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions from unreasonable searches and seizures, and no warrant to search any place or to seize any person or things shall issue without describing them as nearly as may be, not without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation subscribed by the affiant.”

 
The federal version of this article, of course, is the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

 
And as a matter of public policy and the rule of law, we commend a three-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Superior Court for ruling 2-1 this month that random safety checks of boaters without suspicion of wrongdoing violates those dual constitutional protections.

 
The tribunal did, however, leave the state Fish and Boat Commission a good bit of wiggle room to conduct the kind of safety checks the agency says are vital for waterways safety. That is, designing a system akin to motor vehicle DUI checkpoints, previously ruled constitutional by state appellate courts.

 
The commission, however, is rejecting that notion. And John Arway, executive director of the Fish and Boat Commission, says his agency will continue to conduct the unconstitutional boat checks while commission legal staffs review the ruling and decide if an appeal will be filed with the state Supreme Court.

 
Advise to boaters: Flash your pocket copy of the state and federal Constitutions, and cite this ruling – Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Frederick W. Karash – should your watercraft be stopped and boarded indiscriminately by “The State” pending any appeals.

 
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

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Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

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