(I keep telling myself I should lay off John-John for awhile, but then the Guv or one of his lackeys comes up with yet another gem, and I can't help myself.)
John Kasich declared Ohio "open for business", and he told his state EPA director to be "friendlier to business" and consider the business costs of environmental regulations. In fact, there are a couple of bills in the Ohio assembly right now which would require satisfactory cost-benefit analysis before any implementation. They call it "common sense."
State Senator Jim Hughes (R, Columbus) puts it this way: "If we don't change the way we do business, we are going to continue to lose jobs to those states that have [reformed] excessive and burdensome regulatory rules."
Not so fast, boys! Now you're tellin' me it's our stringent environmental rules that make businesses run for Ohio's exits. I thought it was that exorbitantly costly, budget-breaking collective bargaining for public employees that spelled our certain doom. Probably both, huh? Matter of fact, if I bought what you were selling, I'd have to believe that any company still located in Ohio was being run by abject idiots. I mean, why stay here when you could move to any other state, completely avoid unionized labor, pollute with carefree abandon, and really maximize the old bottom line?
Total bullshit, and another proof of who bought the last election and just how stupid they think we all are.
I'm in business, where cost-benefit analyses occur daily. Indeed, they go on for all us all the time, business or not. Is it worth it? Money well-spent? Enough value/return for my dollar? In many ways, life is nothing but a bunch of cost-benefit evaluations.
However, examining issues such as pollution and environmental safety solely through the lens of business-style cost-benefit analysis is just flat-out fucking foolish! Because business will always find rules to be too costly. Business will give us poison and tell us it's healthy; they'll blithely spew toxic carcinogens right out in the middle of the street all day every day unless we make them stop. So, we make them stop. And if that costs more, so be it.
Kasich, Hughes and the other dimbulbs don't see it that way. From their 19th century viewpoint, public safety must take a back seat to corporate profit. Welcome to the jungle.
"Hey, boys and girls! Wanna try try a yummy new breakfast cereal? Then ask Mom to bring home a big box of Brutus Buckeye's Ohio Asbestos Flakes -- lightly sweetened, crunchy, and loaded with fiber! You'll want two bowls!"
Caveat emptor.
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