More Government Mandates

Sorry for the blogging absence. It wasn't planned. Well, the absence was planned, but I had fully intended on blogging. The family and I took a little Northern NM/Southern Colorado pre-back to school escape and blogging just sort of fell by the wayside. That's not to say I couldn't have blogged from Chama, Telluride or Durango - I just decided not to do it.

After catching up on recent news stories, I'm glad I took the break. For starters there is this gem of a recommendation from the Health Coverage for New Mexicans Committee (subscription):

• That everyone in New Mexico be required to have health coverage.

Great, I love where this is is going. Maybe in the near future we can have state funded committees to recommend:

• That everyone in New Mexico be required to have life insurance coverage.
• That everyone in New Mexico be required to have pet insurance coverage.
• That everyone in New Mexico be required to have property insurance coverage.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

And, it looks like this is not the only committee working overtime coming up with foolish recommendations on how to solve all that is wrong with the world. The Ethics Committee is back in the saddle with yet another brilliant recommendation:

Lobbyists would have to reveal how much they are being paid and wear badges identifying themselves and their clients if state government adopts recommendations by a task force studying ethics reforms.

The panel, appointed by Gov. Bill Richardson, recommended the New Mexico Legislature consider these and other proposals in a special session.

“The public deserves to know who’s influencing our laws,” said task force member Fred Nathan, who heads a local think tank called Think New Mexico.

Why stop with making lobbyists wear badges at the Roundhouse? We all know that all lobbyists are evil people who do nothing but corrupt our democratic system. We also know that their devilish efforts are not limited to the thirty and sixty day session. These lobbyists can be found throughout the year at committee meetings as well as local coffeehouses and restaurants poisoning the minds of our honest and hard working elected officials.

Let's do this right and have a recommendation with some teeth. Pass a law to require, from this day forth, that all lobbyists sew a yellow star onto all of their clothing, so that they are easily identifiable to the good people of New Mexico.