Bureaucrat's Fantasy

NYTimes ^ | May 2, 2005 | David Barstow & Lowell Bergman

[MaryInSacto]

For decades, the most egregious workplace safety violations have routinely escaped prosecution, even when they led directly to deaths or grievous injuries. Safety inspectors hardly ever called in the Justice Department. Congress repeatedly declined to toughen criminal laws for workplace deaths. Employers with extensive records of safety violations often paid insignificant fines and continued to ignore basic safety rules.

[MaryInSacto]

It looks as if a bunch of anonymous Clintonistas in the bureaucracy are working hard to gum up the works of the economy. What an insidious way to derail the Bush Recovery while sending U.S. companies overseas.

Note that one of the writers of this piece -- Lowell Bergman -- is a former top fictionalist for 60 Minutes.

[JimSEA]

Thank goodness I am retired.

[Popman]

I read the entire article and didn't find a whole lot that was wrong with the way the Bush administration was moving in this direction.

As with all federal agencies the danger lies in overzealous agents of whatever arm of the government that prosecute to enforce the law without discrimination.

As long as they are truly going after the "bad" guys, which are out there, I don't see a big problem.

[MaryInSacto]

I hope you're right. But these sort of initiatives just as often lead to leftist bureaucrat-led vendettas that drive good companies and jobs overseas or, worse, into a bankruptcy that's driven by junk science.