I hate government! There I took care of that. During this recent round of yelling and throwing things over a stimulus/spending/pork laden/porkulus/insert your own name bill, some attention was given to a part of that bill that would appropriate $30 million toward saving a little mouse. How ridiculous is that in time of such potential “catastrophe” of our economy and an “irreversible” depression that will sink us all, according to our fearless leader?
To what extent we should be protecting little mice, other rodents, insects, etc. will never be decided but there is one thing for certain. When our federal government extends its unconstitutional powers that render an American citizen’s land and property useless and sometimes forcing the person into dire financial difficulties, all for the purpose of saving a mouse, then government needs to pay for their actions. And yes I understand it’s taxpayer money and two wrongs don’t make a right but please.
Hugh Hewitt, a former member of President Ronald Reagan’s staff who worked mostly on Endangered Species Act cases and still practices that kind of law today, explains it a bit better than I.
The ESA has the effect of quarantining land from all use when one of the species it protects inhabits the land. The impact is often devastating and can impoverish or even bankrupt private property owners. The idea of using federal money to actually acquire such properties from such owners, thus spreading the cost of the ESA across the entire country that benefits from it makes a lot of economic sense and would return some fundamental fairness to the system.
As part of the ESA’s flawed system, federal money (some of which will be appropriated in this pork-laden bill) will flow to the animal rights activists groups and communities and as we all know the money doesn’t always get spent to save anything except the organizations that fought for the money. (That’s why we call it pork)
The idea is to somehow stem the tide of granting all rights to animals and making an honest and justifiable system of checks and balances so that no American is left footing the bill to save the Bay Area Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.
I know that’s expecting a lot from any government function but we have to look out for the people. God knows we have enough looking out for the animals.
So not all “pork” is nauseatingly bad. In this case we hope some will find its way to relieve the landowners, but probably not. The key is to stop it before it happens.
Tom Remington
