Most of you who read this blog realize that Mitt Romney and our own Governor Scott Walker are huge proponents of growing the economy by reducing the onerous burden of regulations on small business. And you also realize that those very regulations often insure that we live in safe neighborhoods and communities, enjoy clean air and water, and work in businesses with fewer potential hazards.
And of course we can count on those small business job creators to do the right thing, well, because the competition in the open marketplace will demand it.
Well that sounds just fine except that it isn’t. Even in our current regulated business environment, this small business went out of business. Did they do the right thing and clean up after themselves? Hell NO…and guess who is going to be on the hook to make sure the local municipality is safe and the local waterways remain clean? You and me my friends via our local office of the EPA and Wisconsin’s Dept of Natural Resources!
Here’s the article from our Milwaukee Journal Sentinel…and some ‘highlights’:
Niphos Coatings Inc. abruptly closed a few years ago and the chemicals, as well as plating equipment, garbage and other debris, were left behind, officials said. Photos taken during a court-ordered building inspection in late August reveal blue- and black-colored drums and white barrels of chemicals throughout the building.
Owner Thomas Harju of Slinger stopped paying property taxes for the business in 2007, county records show. He has not responded to repeated requests from Washington County and state emergency government officials for information on what hazards remain inside.
EPA officials in Chicago are attempting to coax the owner to voluntarily give them access to the site rather than going through the time-consuming process of asking a federal judge to approve a warrant.
Slinger Police Chief Dean Schmidt said Friday that he met with Harju late Thursday and the property owner agreed to cooperate. Harju signed an access agreement with the EPA, Schmidt said.
Federal regulators and contractors likely will get inside within the next two weeks to count and assess the condition of containers and begin testing contents, said Jaime Brown, an emergency response on-scene coordinator for the EPA’s Superfund program in Chicago.
Samples from containers will be tested to confirm hazardous contents, Brown said. After test results are available, the EPA could schedule the removal of the compounds by early October.
If the owner is unable to pay costs of removing and disposing of the chemicals, the EPA would fund the cleanup, Brown said. The agency could attempt to recover costs at a later date, Brown said.
Two of the chemicals inside the abandoned building – nitric acid and sodium cyanide – are considered extremely hazardous, according to Schmid, the county emergency management coordinator.
So, if this can happen now, what do you think would happen in an Unregulated environment?
The purpose of government is not to coddle the private sector; it is to secure the public good. And the more works I read by the founders including the works that inspired them, the more the driving principles behind their notions of government are revealed: the purpose of government is securing happiness and the public good. The quality of life afforded to all of society is the primary goal of good government. I have yet to find deregulation or the primacy of the private sector as a government ideal. The public at large, not the private sector, is always of foremost concern.
Thomas Paine:
“Public good is not a term opposed to the good of individuals; on the contrary, it is the good of every individual collected. it is the good of all, because it is the good of everyone; for as the public body is every individual collected, so the public good is the collected good of those individuals.”
Note: What is good for the free market or what is good for incorporated bodies is not included within the realm of public good.
Thomas Paine:
“The foundation-principle of public good is justice, and whenever justice is impartially administered, the public good is promoted; for as it is to the good of every man that no injustice be done to him, so likewise it is to his good that the principle which secures him should not be violated in the person of another, because such a violation weakens his security, and leaves to chance what ought to be to him a rock to stand on.”
As I see it deregulation is an injustice committed upon the good of every individual collected. It could very well be that regulatory measures burden businesses. But, that’s the price to be paid to secure the public good so that we all have that “rock to stand on.”
Businesses cannot be trusted to do the right thing. There’s not an industry operating today that can be trusted to do the right thing, and the public has little or no recourse against the atrocities committed by the private sector. Niphos Coatings is an excellent example of unjust conduct contrary to the public good, but there are so many, many more. I agree, Ed. We don’t need fewer regulations, we need to more fully enforce the ones we have and go further. Government is the authority overseeing the private sector, not the other way around. The public needs to rally behind tighter regulatory authority. It is in their interest to do so.
Romney and Ryan have yet to provide any empirical data to prove their assertions that deregulation promotes job creation. Blanket deregulation does not stimulate job “creators” and “job creators” shouldn’t get stimulus (tax breaks) for doing what they are supposed to do anyway – create jobs. If the private sector is so darn more efficient than the government surely they can innovate around a strict regulatory environment. Deregulators like Romney and Ryan only further the corruption of crony capitalism at the expense of the public good. The government Romney and Ryan envision which favors industry over public good can only be deemed despotic.
awesome…thank you for your comment!