This New Font Will Save Your Life? Big Government, Butt Out!
A few years ago in the Illinois Legislature, an amendment was tucked into a bill that would have required sound barriers in highway construction projects to be constructed solely with concrete. When this amendment came to light, it disappeared just like it appeared – quietly and anonymously.
Also, there are many people who cannot differentiate the difference between the free market and crony capitalism; the end result is that the bad reputation which crony capitalism has earned has also been applied to the free market. In the end, a bad reputation is given to all businesses, regardless of their ethical standards.
Third, any local government leaders who want a reason to spend money are literally handed one – along with the excuse that “they had no choice.” Politicians in Illinois definitely fit in this category.
Forcing state and local governments to make changes that are unnecessary usually go unnoticed, since such stories are usually deemed un-newsworthy; I didn’t know about this mandate until 2010, when politicians in Milwaukee County told the NHTSA that the county didn’t have the money to comply with it.
With the many levels of bureaucracy in Washington, it’s safe to assume that there will be no end to expensive and worthless rules such as this one, until the self-proclaimed public servants who run for office are replaced with true public servants. Maybe we should be grateful that the bureaucrats involved in this mandate didn’t resort to the tired political battle cry that this new street sign font is “for the children” – like some now-nondescript pedestrian and school zone signs in Cook County.
Image: Courtesy of Ignacio Perez Perez; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
