The Law of Unintended Consequences

Whenever our politicians (poly=many, tics=blood sucking parasites) come up with a new scheme to make everything "fair", or to make our society even more "perfect" I tremble, knowing that whatever they conjure up for the rest of us, there will be side effects. The first side effect is "someone" is going to have to pay for it. Secondly, no matter how many experts have given their esteemed opinion as to the benefits of the new law, it will have unforeseen effects.

For instance when Jimmy Carter heralded in a new day with his "Community Reinvestment Act" back in 1976, nobody paid too much attention, it had such a benign sounding name, it must be a good thing, right? The basic premise of the law was to make banks loan to areas that they had previously red lined as too risky. Never mind the details as to why those areas were risky in the first place. The law under Carter, Reagan and Bush 1, never got enforced and was backburnered. But when Clinton got in office, he gave the law teeth and started cracking down on banks that weren't making loans to high risk areas, individuals and businesses. If the banks were still recalcitrant to make risky loans, community organizers would stage public protests and picket the banks, claiming discrimination, etc. Simply put, this started the whole mortgage crisis ball rolling which lead to financial institutions crumbling and to the worldwide banking crisis we have today. Of course there are many villains in this, but the crux of the crisis was the good intentioned CRA under Carter.

Which leads me to another unintended consequence of a feel good law which mandated we use methanol made from corn as an additive to our fuel. We are the largest producer of corn in the world, not only is it a food source for us (we love corn on the cob), but it is a main livestock feed. Have you noticed since this law was passed food prices have shot up, the packages that food came in not only cost more but they were smaller and meat is more expensive...Oh has anybody noticed gasoline is now 3.50 per gallon here in the west?

OK, now the "polyticians" gave us a 3,000 page total overhaul of our health care system, without themselves reading, or if they did, understanding it. Of course they have their own health care and they will not be affected. But to get the bill passed, many politicians had to be bribed and coerced, the Senate rules bent in an arcane way in order to squeak this by in the middle of the night. If it was so good why all the chicanery?

Americas health care system is/was responsible for 90% of medical breakthroughs, cures for many once formerly deadly illnesses and lifesaving medical procedures. This wasn't done by government bureaucrats, this was accomplished by mostly private industry. This Obamacare is at its core, socialized medicine and will kill our once vibrant health care system. Sure the system had its faults, but it didn't call for the total overhaul of the system with government as the end all be all in the final analysis.

The House of Representatives are prepared to repeal Obamacare. If the Senate is truly looking out for the citizens of the US, they will repeal this flawed piece of legislation too...Because I don't know how many more unintended consequences we can afford.