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With a Wave of a Wand or the Passing of a Law…

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

Many people seem to believe that all you have to do in order to change the world for the better is to pass a law demanding that it be so.  They think passing a law will be like waving a wand, and everything will magically become what they wish it would be.  Wouldn’t it be nice if that were so?  If that were the case, there would be lots of laws we all might want to have enacted, like laws requiring us all to be thin, beautiful, intelligent, happy, rich….However, most problems are not solved by passing laws, and many problems are made much worse.  For example, if the legislature passed a law tomorrow requiring everyone to be thin, many of us would still be fat, plus we would have the added problem of having to hide from the police!  Surely people know that, and yet they continue to act as if they don’t.

Wal-Mart and Health Insurance – Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had health insurance?  Maryland recently passed a law requiring Wal-Mart to provide health insurance to its employees, and a similar bill has been filed in Kentucky.  The proponents of the law claim they are motivated by a heartfelt caring about the people who work at Wal-Mart.  However, the reality is that Wal-Mart or any other employer can only pay people what they are worth based on their productivity, and passing a law will not change that.  If an employer is forced to provide greater compensation in the form of health insurance, then it will have to reduce the amount of compensation it pays in other forms.  Many workers already have health insurance through other sources and would prefer to receive their compensation in cash, so a law requiring an employer to compensate in the form of health insurance actually will result in a net loss of income to those people.  The fact is that more than 90 percent of Wal-Mart employees have health insurance. Nobody is forced to work at Wal-Mart; they work there because it is their best option.  Is it possible that the union folks who are pushing this law are really just using it as a way to beat up on Wal-Mart because it is a non-union company? 

          Affordable Housing – Wouldn’t it be nice if there were plenty of affordable housing for everyone?  Of course, many of the people who claim to want more affordable housing are the same people who promote all kinds of land use restrictions and building regulations that drive up the cost of housing and make it less affordable.  Now, in Kentucky, there is a proposal to increase the costs for people buying property in order to put that money into a trust fund to be used to subsidize housing for low income people.  This proposal would subsidize housing for a few select people by making housing more expensive and unaffordable for everyone!  Thanks to this law, many people who are struggling to buy their first home may find it to be impossible, due to the increased costs, but no matter.  Now, instead of being independent and self-sufficient, they can go, hat in hand, and beg the government for special assistance.  Some magic wand!

          Sports and Real Life? – Wouldn’t it be nice if every student athlete could be a winner? Everyone knows that hard work, teamwork, and respect for coaches are the kinds of things that make winning teams, and we see kids learning these valuable lessons by participating in sports, but some people just can’t stand the idea of their children having to suffer the agony of defeat in order to learn those lessons.  Some people (especially Texans) might say it was healthy for USC to be reminded that, no matter how many Heisman trophies you win and how many sports reporters rank you number one, you still have to out-perform your opponents in order to win a national championship.  However, despite the proven benefits of athletic competition, there is still a movement afoot to pass a law in Kentucky to separate the public schools from the private schools for championship play, because the private schools win too many state championships.  Just pass a law to shield the public school athletes from the toughest competition, and, with the wave of a wand, all students can be above average, and everyone can be a champion!    

P.S. On the subject of athletic competition, while it certainly is sad to see an athlete like Marcus Vick screwing up his life, it does not help when people like The C-J’s Betty Baye give him an excuse and blame his dangerous and disrespectful behavior on racial prejudice.  She doesn’t even know Marcus Vick, so how can she know what motivated him to stomp on another black player, Elvis Dumervil, in the Gator Bowl game?  Many black people overcome all kinds of obstacles, including racial prejudice, to succeed in sports and in life.  If she really cared about “her people”, she would stop giving them excuses to fail and ruin their lives and instead would try to inspire them to achieve and succeed.

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