SIX FEET UNDER

While limiting the size of the federal government has become all the rage these days, and GOP and Tea Party politicians are banging their fists on the table demanding a major downsizing of the federal workforce, I'd like to focus on the dirty underside of all this bellyaching. Some people will pay the steepest of price for crippling the protections offered by the federal government – they'll lose their lives…as in stop breathing and get buried six feet under! You don't hear that from the politicians, do you?

The Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) is the agency of the federal government that works to safeguard the health of our citizens and our environment against air, water and land pollution and hazardous waste (chemical, mineral & nuclear). The E.P.A. employs approximately 18,000 workers to develop, maintain and police federal regulations designed to carry out the Agency's mandates. Without E.P.A. regulations and the power to enforce those regulations, individuals and businesses would be free to dump unlimited amounts of toxic waste products into our nation's air and waterways and ordinary citizens would be virtually powerless to protect themselves against the effects of discarded deadly toxic pollutants.

People like to think that businesses would not jeopardize the health of people living around their plants by polluting the local environment, but that kind of thinking is delusional. The goal of business is first and foremost to make a profit. So long as polluting does not result in negative profits, polluters will continue at will. Ordinary citizens are seldom in any position to prevent, monitor or prosecute polluters for destroying the environment, so without government regulations of pollution, ordinary citizens would have little or no protection.

For example, since 1980, when Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, a law enacted to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances, the E.P.A. has supervised the clean-up of over 1600 toxic waste sites, all of which involved a finding that the hazardous waste site posed a substantial likelihood of causing human death and other adverse health conditions if left untreated. Without E.P.A. protections, our entire citizenry would suffer the consequences.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is another good example of government protecting citizens. The Transportation Department maintains and enforces federal regulations that cover aviation travel and shipping, highway infrastructure, highway safety, motor carrier safety, railroads, pipeline infrastructure and maritime shipping.

Maybe you don't care whether a truck carrying propane has had its brakes inspected in the last 30 days, but I do, because a propane tanker with faulty brakes is a time bomb barreling 65 MPH down any highway it travels. With DOT safety regulations and regular enforcement at weigh stations, people are far safer when on highways than they would be without safety regulations.

Yes, smaller government would mean less regulation and less taxpayer money to fund regulation, but less traffic safety regulation means more accidents and more loss-of-life. That's because people will cut corners when they can and profits trumps safety concerns in an unregulated marketplace.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is an agency of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Its job is to protect and promote public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, dietary supplements, pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, over-the-counter medications, blood transfusions, medical radiation devices, veterinary products and cosmetics. It has over 35,000 employees.

You could downsize the government substantially by eliminating that work force, but then there would be no meat inspectors working to insure that your hamburgers are not laden with the latest food poison to hit the slaughtering plant. There would be no scientists intervening on your behalf to insure that that the drugs you are taking have been reasonably tested to reduce the possibility of your dying from the medication. Yes, your spouse could sue the pharmaceutical company if you died taking one of its pills, but that would end up being one ordinary citizen versus an entire drug industry, so I don't personally like the individual's chance of winning that battle.

My favorite is the Federal Reserve banking system, a system the "small government" crowd wants to dismantle.

The Federal Reserve System (The Fed) is the central system of the United States. It was created in 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, and over the years since, has been the chief arm of the Federal Government conducting the nation's monetary policy. It also regulates banking institutions, maintains the stability of our nation's financial system and provides financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and many foreign governments. The Tea Party crowd would rather risk frequent runs on banks and total losses of individual savings rather than stand for government regulation of the financial sector. That stuff happens in third world countries with no financial regulation, but not here.

The next time somebody says they want to down-size the federal government, ask them which protection they want to jettison first. People think differently when it's their life in the cross hairs.