Pubdate: Wed, 11 Jun 2014
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
Copyright: 2014 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.timesdispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365
Author: A. Barton Hinkle
Page: A9

A GROWING EPIDEMIC: USELESS GOVERNMENT

The trouble with government, P.J. O'Rourke once observed, is that 
nobody ever wants to say, "Stick a fork in it - it's done." In 
support of that thesis Virginia has recently provided Exhibits No. 
3,487,912 and 3,487,913.

Exhibit No. 3,487,912: Last week, the state's congressional 
delegation - both senators and every congressman except Bobby Scott - 
wrote a letter to Gov. Terry McAuliffe urging him to set up a task 
force to address the "growing heroin epidemic in Virginia." Many 
localities, they note, "are on track to see double the number of 
heroin overdose deaths over last year."

Let's stipulate that any heroin overdose is horribly tragic and the 
ideal number of heroin users would be zero. That said, terms like 
"epidemic" and "double the number" obscure as much as they clarify. 
It's true that heroin deaths in Virginia have nearly doubled. They 
have risen from 101 (in 2011) to 197 (in 2013).

That's less than the number who died in 2012, the most recent year 
available, from intestinal infections (212); septicemia, or blood 
poisoning (1,305); pneumonia (1,275); kidney failure (1,501); or 
falling (646). Are these "epidemics" that require special task 
forces? If not, does heroin?

Local law enforcement isn't so sure. "We are not seeing as much 
heroin here," Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman told The Roanoke 
Times. Russell County Sheriff's Office deputy major Bill Watson said 
the same: Heroin "could be a problem, but it's not a problem now." Oh.

A sudden growth in drug abuse might justify creating a new task force 
- - if government were ignoring the problem. Is it? Not exactly. The 
U.S. spends more than $50 billion a year on the war on drugs. 
Washington has a Drug Control Agency, as well as an Office of 
National Drug Control Policy (the "drug czar"). And a National 
Institute on Drug Abuse. And a Substance Abuse & Mental Health 
Services Administration.

And plenty of other agencies dedicated to other issues that also 
fight in the war on drugs. The FBI's Organized Crime Division, for 
instance, necessarily deals with the illegal drug trade. The 
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency has a High Intensity Drug 
Trafficking Area Task Force, as well as an Organized Crime Drug 
Enforcement Task Force. And so on.

Virginia has - well, let's see: the Department of Behavioral Health 
and Developmental Services. The Governor's Substance Abuse Services 
Council. Drug courts, and their Virginia Drug Courts Association. The 
State Police and its Drug Enforcement Section, which includes GIANT- 
the Governor's Initiative Against Narcotics Trafficking. The State 
Police's drug enforcement section also participates in "22 
multi-jurisdictional task forces throughout the state."

Virginia has 39 community services boards that offer help for drug 
users. The State Corporation Commission offers discounts on workers' 
comp premiums to employers that satisfy the requirements of the 
drugfree workplace program. The public schools have had a Drug Abuse 
Resistance Education program since 1985. The jails have jail-based 
substance abuse programs. The -

OK, you get the point. If this gargantuan drug-prevention apparatus 
has not put a dent in the recent "epidemic" and "doubling" of heroin 
use, then how likely is yet another task force to do so?

McAuliffe did not immediately respond to the congressional letter, 
other than to issue a pro forma, anti-heroin statement. But the day 
before, he did create - this is Exhibit No. 3,487,913 - another 
government board: the Virginia Energy Council, which will "assist in 
the development and implementation of a cohesive, comprehensive, and 
aggressive energy strategy for Virginia and deliver recommendations 
for the Virginia Energy Plan, which will be submitted to the General 
Assembly on October 1, 2014." Oh, good. The Energy Council should not 
be confused with the Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy - or 
the Secretariat of Commerce and Trade, or the Secretariat of Natural 
Resources, from which the Council will draw its staff. And though it 
is supposed to "accelerate the development and use of renewable 
energy resources," it probably won't do so through a program 
supporting property tax exemptions for solar energy systems, because 
Virginia already has one. It also isn't likely to propose the 
creation of a Voluntary Solar Resource Development Fund, or a tax 
exemption for energy efficient buildings, or a Clean Energy 
Manufacturing Incentive Grant Program, or a green jobs tax credit - 
because Virginia already has all of those, too.

Virginia also has a local energy alliance program, an income tax 
deduction for energy-efficient products (and a sales-tax holiday for 
some), a state loan program for renewable-energy equipment, a 
renewable-energy portfolio standard, a solar-resource development 
fund, and a variety of local energy-efficiency rebate programs.

If the Energy Council manages to think up some new energy policy or 
program, it will have to be jammed in the interstices between all the 
state's other energy policies and programs. Not to mention all the 
federal ones, including the countless programs and mandates overseen 
by the Department of Energy and the EPA.

So what would adding a couple more boxes on the already enormous 
government organizational chart achieve, other than allowing a few 
politicos to add bullet points to the campaign brochures? Ask Chris 
Bailey of Lifehacker.com, who recently wrote about 10 lessons he 
learned after an intensive year of studying productivity. 
"Productivity isn't about how much you produce," he wrote, "it's 
about how much you accomplish." That's a lesson Virginia's political 
class - and the nation's - has yet to learn.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom