Josh Shapiro, the Democratic Governor of the Great State of Pennsylvania, has found a way to cut through the jungle of red tape, expense and delays surrounding the issuance of state permits: impose CONSEQUENCES if they are not issued in a timely manner! Now the people causing the delays are the ones causing the on-time delivery. It’s some kind of miracle! What common sense idea will they think of next?
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The chap in Hong Kong was Sir John Cowperthwaite. PJ O’Rourke paid tribute to him in the Hong Kong chapter of Eat the Rich.
I also endorse Bill’s comment about sunset laws, although perhaps that decision can be made as part of passing it, so some laws have a 5 year life and a very few serious ones have a 20 year life, etc. On Scott’s “fanciful” idea to return taxes to the payers if the budget is not passed in time, the problem is they are then returning money they don’t have. But of course the reasonable option is you don’t have to pay those taxes in the first place if there is no budget requiring a funding/ revenue source. Another aspect to… Read more »
Two things: (1) The agencies will fight back by setting very long estimates for the time expected to process applications. (2) Agencies will always invent more things one needs a permit for because those permits are a income for the agency.
The Johnstown, PA water board is stonewalling on building a dam. What could possibly go wrong?
So my cynicism took a shot this morning.
One of my first thoughts is that Gov Shapiro must be up for re-election in Nov.
Nope.
His term just started in 2023.
Shocked face.
We have a new Nuclear Energy Plant down here in Georgia. Delays in permitting made costs go way up. Cost advantages of nuclear would be even higher if things like this didn’t happen
I thought Robert A. Heinlein had a great idea in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: I note one proposal to make this Congress a two-house body. Excellent—the more impediments to legislation the better. But, instead of following tradition, I suggest one house legislators, another whose single duty is to repeal laws. Let legislators pass laws only with a two-thirds majority … while the repealers are able to cancel any law through a mere one-third minority. Preposterous? Think about it. If a bill is so poor that it cannot command two-thirds of your consents, is it not likely that it… Read more »
The concern I would have is one party in the clear majority of each of those houses–the House of Legislators and the House of Repealers. In this case, they would always have the 2/3 majority to make the law in the former house and prevent a 1/3 minority to repeal the law in the latter house.
I have not read that Heinlein book, so maybe there is something to in the plot to prevent this.
One must remember that Heinlein wrote that book in the 60’s. Congress was not nearly so divided and partisan then. They were more deserving of the “Honorable Gentleman From” sobriquet in those days. No, they were not perfect, but Congress had not devolved into the circus we are currently seeing.
That being said, I believe H’s book outlined a simple majority to repeal, not 1/3.
That was a copy-paste directly from the book.
DANGIT!
But that would mean that I don’t have every word of RAH’s works committed to memory!
<scribbles note> ‘more work on memorization needed!!’
I’ll get back to ya…
Yes, a good point to debate further. Just what or why is a normal majority the norm, rather than a supermajority of 60 or 66%? Then again, we typically don’t want a minority controlling the preferences of a majority [while still granting the rights of that minority.] But I suspect that 2/3 is such a high barrier for passage that no laws would ever be passed, something some folks would applaud and others would be sore displeased to see. After all, even from our conservative perspective there are laws with merit [e.g., a strong anti-squatter law is probably gaining more… Read more »
Thunderous applause! Make regulations measurable and make them accountable! Thank you gentlemen!
Permits – where the government takes away a Right you already have, and then sells it back to you… Maybe.
Well stated. Permits are, like other taxes, enforced at the barrel-end of a gun.
Government has become nothing more than a collection of “mafioso dons” with “legalized: power created from the vacuum between the members’ ears and loudly-justified with the gas emitted from other orifices.
Hey. Nice internet account you got there.
Be a shame if anything happened to it….