Free Lunch Read Online Free PDF

and, in extreme cases,
prosecution have all been gutted in pursuit of deregulation and supposedly smaller government. It has become difficult and
sometimes impossible just to find someone to take a complaint that an employer refused to pay wages or locked people in to make
them work or stole the retirement money. When there is no policeman on the beat the greatest beneficiary is not the taxpayer who
is relieved of the cost of maintaining that police officer, but the thief. And when bridges, tunnels, and dams are not inspected and
repaired we are all in danger.
    Despite all the deregulation rhetoric, government grows ever
bigger. The number of federal government workers shrinks, but the ranks of people who are hired on contract at much greater cost
increases. In 2000 workers hired on contract cost our federal government $207 billion. By 2006 this had swelled to $400
billion—rivaling the expense of either Social Security or interest on the federal government’s growing debt.
    These contract workers typically cost twice as much as civil servants doing the same work, yet they are even
less accountable. In Iraq we court-martial and imprison soldiers who under the stress of relentless urban combat kill innocents in a
fit of anger or misjudgment. But the contract soldiers who fight alongside them, at two to ten times the pay, operate in a law-free
zone, any killings they commit for foul reason unpunished and, some of our leaders assert, beyond the reach of any
law.
    At home, government and companies cooperate in withdrawing contracts and other
documents from the public record. The profits generated by these companies are used, in part, to lobby for more contracts that
drive up costs even further. Executives of these companies are also strategic donors to politicians, helping to ensure the
continuing flow of tax dollars to their businesses. This is a benefit unavailable to even the most empire-building
bureaucrat.
    On another front, government is easing up on rules that ensure clean water to
drink and fresh air to breathe. When companies dump toxics instead of cleaning up at their own expense, they force everyone to
bear the costs of environmental pollution. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted with flammable chemicals that it
caught fire at least nine times starting in 1868. But it was not until the 1969 fire brought national news coverage that national debate
ensued about pollution and economic growth. Only then did government adopt rules to give us cleaner air and water—and thus
save us some of the anguish and the cost of asthma, cancer, and heart disease. But under the guise of deregulation, many of those
rules are being relaxed, repealed, or ignored.
    Now we face a similar problem that damages
lives and costs us dearly. A growing array of businesses and whole industries profit by dumping their real costs of capital,
equipment, and even labor onto the taxpayers. This new problem is economic
pollution.
    We shall see the economic pollution caused by just one industry in
which Tyco International, General Electric, and Honeywell are major players. This industry owes its entire profits not to unleashing
the forces of competitive business, but to silently shifting its largest labor expense onto the taxpayers.
    Under deregulation we have created a host of dependent companies that hold out their very large hands to
take money from Washington, the state capitals, and towns and cities everywhere. Wal-Mart, Target, and a host of lesser-known
retailers all count on government handouts when they open new stores. These subsidies serve not only to enhance their profits,
but also to undermine locally owned businesses that are crucial to the social fabric of communities. These retailers are not, by far,
the worst offenders, however. Examples abound of companies and industries that foul the national ledgers, degrading the income
and wealth of us all through economic pollution.
    Sometimes the