Look!
It is so easy to be wrong – and to persist in being wrong – when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.
—Thomas Sowell
ACCORDING to a lawmaker, the recent community trash drop-off in Kagman “demonstrated the need for universal trash collection.”
That’s an opinion held by many well-meaning and intelligent people. They argue that universal trash collection is the solution to what they say is a problem.
To test their proposition’s validity, let’s ask economist Thomas Sowell’s three questions:
So. Universal trash collection.
1) Compared to what other option?
2) At what cost?
3) What hard evidence do you have?
We have another question:
4) Who’s paying?
More questions:
What is the government’s track record in performing the various critical tasks it has arrogated to itself for the common good? What makes us believe it should be saddled with yet another responsibility amid an economic downturn and uncertainty? What are the likely consequences of government failure?
Kagman households, incidentally, were provided a free service by candidates for office in an election year. Nothing wrong with that, we think. But according to its proponents in the GCEA, universal trash collection would not be free.
Up in the sky!
IN its report, the Marianas Universal Garbage Collection Task Force recommended the (mandatory?) inclusion of garbage collection services for each residential customer of CUC whose sterling historical record as a critical public entity can be gleaned from previous legislative oversight hearings, OPA reports, the back issues of Marianas Variety, and the so many documents filed by EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court.
Right now, many CUC customers believe they’re paying “high” utility rates. Many are also unaware that the federal government has been “requesting” CUC to charge rates that reflect the actual costs of its operations. That is, CUC should raise its rates.
Under the Universal Garbage Collection or UCG proposal, CUC customers would likely pay an additional charge. What about households that have contracts with private trash collectors? Would they be compelled to sign up for trash collection services administered by a perennially cash-strapped government?
CUC’s largest delinquent customer, incidentally, is the government. Among many other things, CUC has to purchase fuel for its power plants. If CUC, once again, is “short” on cash for fuel, would it end up spending the garbage collection fees and not paying the trash collectors on time? What happens if the trash collectors stop collecting the trash because they’re not getting paid?
This is not exactly a hypothetical scenario as any vendor who has to deal with the government would tell you.
But apparently, the possibility that government solution would once again make things worse hasn’t been factored in this proposed “universal” solution.
Rainbows and unicorns!
PLEASE note that the task force was not created to find out if universal garbage collection is the most cost-effective, most practical, and most viable “solution” to what its proponents insist is a “big problem.” The task force was formed to justify its pre-selected preferred solution.
And the actual real “problem” is not the absence of universal garbage collection, but the existence of households who don’t want to pay for trash collection services — households whose occupants include registered voters.
In any case, a far better solution should not involve saddling CUC with an additional responsibility or imposing a burden on households and businesses that have already availed themselves of trash collection services.
Why not tap available federal funds and open more transfer stations in Kagman, Koblerville and other places where there are illegal dumping sites? And how about enforcing, for once, the 1989 anti-littering law?
