Progressive Taxes to Pay for Sewers Are Immoral...
Paul Krugman:
Stuff Happens: Stuff Happens Joe Romm has some fun with the Texas Attorney General, who declares himself opposed to regulation of CO2 on the grounds that
It is almost the height of insanity of bureaucracy to have the EPA regulating something that is emitted by all living things.
As Joe points out, this argument says that we should adopt an equally laissez-faire attitude toward sewage.
But hey, there was a time when conservatives did, in fact, argue for doing nothing about effluent of any kind. In the years leading up to the Great Stink of 1858, which finally got the British to build a London sewer system, The Economist editorialized against any such foolish notion (pdf):
suffering and evil are nature’s admonitions—they cannot be got rid of.
Or, to put it (almost) in the modern vernacular, stuff happens.
And given the way we’re heading — with politicians arguing that the federal government has no right to ban child labor — don’t be surprised to see the anti-sewer movement making a comeback, and to see elected representatives, even if they know better, holding their noses and going along.
