I suppose when a federal agency has 105,000 employees, it has a lot of folks just sitting around wondering what they can regulate next. For the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it’s six-toed cats in Key West.

European elitists want to create a bureaucratic super-state, but their efforts to further centralize power in Brussels are complicated by the fact that voters generally are opposed to the loss of national sovereignty. In an effort to circumvent these voters and avoid holding referenda, the proposed European constitution has been cosmetically modified and is now being called a treaty. Every so often, however, a politician blurts out the truth and admits (apologies to Hans Christian Andersen) that the Emperor has no clothes.

As reported by the EU Observer, an Italian minister who was closely involved in the drafting process has acknowledged that the text of the constitution/​treaty was deliberately made unreadable in order to keep voters from understanding the radical changes that are being proposed. Mr Amato deserves credit for telling the truth, but his admission also is a sign that Europe’s elite have utter disdain for public opinion:

The new EU reform treaty text was deliberately made unreadable for citizens to avoid calls for referendum, one of the central figures in the treaty drafting process has said. Speaking at a meeting of the Centre for European Reform in London on Thursday (12 July) former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato said: “They [EU leaders] decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception”. …Mr Amato, who is now minister of the interior in Italy, has been a central figure in all stages of the year-long process of writing a new constitution for
Europe. He was vice-president and leader of the socialists in the Convention, the body that wrote the first constitution-draft in 2002–2003 under the leadership of former French president Giscard d’Estaing. …Following two years of ‘reflection’ Mr Amato headed the 16-strong group of politicians which prepared a simplified version of the document. Unofficially known as the “Amato Group” the group stripped the rejected constitution of its constitutional elements — including the article on the EU’s symbols. But the main elements of the original constitution were kept in. …“This is an extraordinary admission from someone who has been close to the negotiations on the EU treaty”, said Open Europe director Neil O’Brien. “The idea of just changing the name of the Constitution and pretending that it is just another complex treaty shows a total contempt for voters.”

I just sent this letter to the editor of the Washington Post:

The lack of outrage about China’s horrific execution of a corrupt food and drug regulator in a recent editorial [“Rough Justice,” July 14] was itself outrageous.
 
Zheng Xiaoyu was put to death for (allegedly) taking bribes that enabled unsafe products to reach the market. The death toll thus far is hundreds of lives lost in China and Panama.
 
Dr. David A. Kessler was commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1991 through 1996. In 1988, researchers at Harvard University had demonstrated that widespread use of aspirin at the onset of a heart attack and daily for 30 days afterward could save 5,000 lives per year in the United States. Yet Dr. Kessler’s FDA refused to let aspirin manufacturers advertise that extremely important information until 1996. That policy resulted in as many as 30,000 unnecessary deaths during Dr. Kessler’s tenure. No one has ever accused Dr. Kessler of taking bribes. But he surely benefited personally from his position and from his aggressive regulatory policies, going on to be named dean of Yale University’s medical school.
 
If Dr. Kessler’s political opponents in the U.S. government had put Dr. Kessler to death for his actions as a regulator, I think the Post would denounce his execution as barbaric. But then why be so blithe about an equally barbaric execution in China?

I’m used to people valuing the lives of the FDA’s Type I victims more than the lives of its Type II victims. But valuing the lives of Type I victims more than the lives of the regulators themselves is a new one by me.

The socialist government of Norway is leading a new campaign against tax havens. Norwegian workers can be thankful, though, that the state pension fund is not consumed by the same big-government ideology. According to a Norwegian newspaper, the oil-enriched fund invests billions of dollars in tax haven companies, thus ensuring that more money actually winds up in the hands of retirees rather than politicians. But if the Norwegian government’s anti-tax competition campaign is successful, all workers will be hurt since politicians all around the world will be more likely to raise taxes if they think the geese that lay the golden eggs cannot fly away:

Norway’s center-left government coalition has made an issue of battling offshore tax havens. Both Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen and the minister in charge of foreign aid, Erik Solheim, have harshly criticized companies, both Norwegian- and foreign-owned, that avoid taxes by registering themselves in countries with low or non-existent tax obligations. At the same time, however, the state’s massive pension fund that’s fueled by Norway’s oil revenues has been investing billions in companies that are registered in tax havens. This includes companies “based” in places like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Cyprus. … Finance Minister Halvorsen has characterized Norwegians who invest in tax havens as a “provocation against Norwegian taxpayers.” She’s not demanding, though, that the state pension fund blacklist tax haven investments.

According to a Reuters report, a new study from the United Kingdom estimates that more than 3,000 lives would be extended if the 17.5 percent value-added tax was imposed on supposedly unhealthy foods. Without endorsing the specific estimates, the underlying economic analysis is sound. Certain foods presumably are unhealthy (at least for people who already are overweight) and taxing those foods will change behavior (just like taxing work, saving, and investment changes behavior).

But this does not mean, as a matter of principle, that the government should use the tax code to dictate private choices. Once politicians wander down that path, what will stop them from taxing people at higher rates if they don’t jog at least three times a week? Or how about tax credits for eating green vegetables? Some might respond that taxpayers have a right to insist on healthy behavior since they are paying – via the government-run health care systems – the medical costs of unhealthy people. But this highlights the problem of a socialized health care system. If people are responsible for the consequences of their own choices, then there is less temptation for nanny-state policies. For what it’s worth, this does not mean that the U.K. should maintain a VAT exemption for food. But the exemption should be eliminated as part of a plan to reduce the general tax burden, not as a scheme to control people’s lives:

A “fat tax” on salty, sugary and fatty foods could save thousands of lives each year, according to a study published on Thursday. Researchers at Oxford University say that charging Value Added Tax (VAT) at 17.5 percent on foods deemed to be unhealthy would cut consumer demand and reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes. The purchase tax is already levied on a small number of products such as potato crisps, ice cream, confectionery and chocolate biscuits, but most food is exempt. The move could save an estimated 3,200 lives in Britain each year, according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. …Any “fat tax” might be seen as an attack on personal freedom and would weigh more heavily on poorer families, the study warned. A food tax would raise average weekly household bills by 4.6 percent or 67 pence per person. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has previously rejected the idea as an example of the “nanny state” that might push people away from healthy food.

Most Americans are appalled by pork spending, corporate welfare, and other congressional waste. But at least one man relishes federal giveaways. He extols the government freebee. The July 4 Falls Church (Virginia) News-Press notes:

“Mothers, lock up your daughters, because Matthew Lesko, the so-called ‘crazy Free Money Guy,’ will be camping out in front of the U.S. Capitol from August 14–17. Famous for his question-marked suit, Lesko will be answering questions during his campout as part of a program he calls: One Man, 72 Hours, 100,000 Government Freebies.”

So folks, don’t leave the taxpayer rip-offs to the expert Washington lobby firms such as Cassidy and Associates. If you are vacationing in D.C. this August, you can teach yourself how to drain the U.S. Treasury from the Free Money Guy.

(These days pilfering from federal taxpayers has been raised to a fine art form. Indeed, here’s Lesko immortalized in a D.C. art gallery.)

Unhealthy products from China have been in the news lately. First it was poisoned pet food, then contaminated toothpaste, toy trains with lead paint, and now farmed fish containing unauthorized chemicals. For skeptics of trade, the news offers yet another reason to beware of imports in general but especially those “Made in China.”

Consumers have every right to be concerned about the safety of the products they buy, but the problem of potentially harmful products is not unique to China or even imports. As a New York Times story points out today, U.S. customs officials routinely intercept more potentially harmful food imports from Mexico and India than they do from China. Federal inspectors have turned away hundreds of shipments of produce from the Dominican Republic and even candy from Denmark.

Safety concerns are not confined to imports. Americans have been poisoned by beef from Nebraska, spinach from California, and peanut butter from Georgia. The same safety standards apply to imported food as to domestic food. The right response is not wholesale restrictions on imports, but to find better ways of keeping harmful products out of stores no matter where the products originate.

The large majority of food products imported to the United States, like those grown domestically, are safe and healthy. In fact, imports improve our health by making fresh produce available year around. Imports also keep prices down at the grocery store, which benefits low-income families most of all. Raising tariffs on imported food would certainly do more harm than good.