A few year ago Richard Kemp wrote the South Peace News (July 18, 2018) letting them know that he had enough of me and wanted the conversation to pivot to cutting red tape. A typically conservative cry. He is a man of conviction, I suppose, but has he learned anything since Donald Trump’s chickens have been coming home to roost?
When he took power one of Trump’s promises was to “cut red tape” and he did. So far the results have been gold for the corporations that benefited. Not so much for the bystanders.
The Norfolk Southern wreck was contributed to by his relaxing regulations which were a little to lax anyway. There are reports there were over 800 derailments last year. Norfolk Southern made full use of the situation. They made trains longer, cut the number of workers on a train, and decided not to install electric brakes on the railcars. The result was they were able to give shareholders wonderful dividends and buy back stocks.
As for East Palestine they offered the town $25,000 for their inconvenience. That for dead animals, contaminated water, as yet unknown health problems. . .
The banks were treated to a spat of deregulations, too. Last week, two banks: Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank crashed and burned. President Biden stated the depositors will get their money back but not the investors. There is no word yet as to whether or not the bank’s big shots will have to pay back the multi-million dollar bonuses they received just hours before the collapse.
These were the second and third largest bank failures in US history. The jury is still out on if there will be more banks topple. Someone opined that a large one in Europe – like Credit Swiss- could go and the world will be sinking into a depression.
Sara Huckaby Saunders, the brand new baby governor of Arkansas, cut the red tape involved in hiring children when her buds started getting in trouble for violating child labour laws. In a country where children are working for $4.25 an hour that was an afront to US’s stated values. A mother of young children herself, she beamed when she held up the bill she had just signed. What she should have done was issue work permits for those poor people being bused all over the country. That would have solved the problem. Children are being injured working around the dangerous equipment. The corporations are raking in record profits they can afford to pay grownups.
Texas cut a lot of the gun laws They need at the very least safe gun storage. A 3-year-old in Texas got her hands on a loaded pistol, and killed her four-year-old sister.
They have relaxed the rules around their power grid and it’s dying. A couple of years ago Texas had a cold snap and dozens of people died. A bit of a snowstorm, the power goes out, a couple of people die. In the summer it is stressed and power goes out of there is a fire.
The trouble with red tape is while people may rail against it, there is usually a good need for it. Imagine -40C with Texas’s power grid. The shattering effects as banks begin to topple one by one or all at once. Where people have loaded guns laying around. Where you can send your 12-year-old to work on the night shift cleaning a meat packing plant to supplement the family income.
Imagine living in a world where you might have to. And the most common cause of bankruptcy is medical debt.
There are hard-headed individuals who rail against the very idea of red tape and vow not to ever submit to it. Why should they? They have never lived in a world that never had it.
As for Kemp, if you think true freedom is to live in a country that does these things go ahead and move there. The rest of us should get to work on a wall.
by Eva Sartorius, High Prairie
March 24, 2023
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