Sunday, 10 May 2009

Just what Texas needs: more elected officials

The geniuses up in Austin have diagnosed TxDOT’s problems and decided that the solution is, in part, to have an elected state transportation commission who doubtless will be high-minded representatives of the popular will rather than endless seekers of pork-barrel projects for their geographic districts. Because we all know how helpful having an elected State Board of Education has been in keeping politics out of the public school curriculum.

You can view all the lege’s sausage-making here; it’s a doozy. On the upside, at least they’re banning red-light cameras.

Wednesday, 11 October 2006

Strawman of the week award

E. Frank Stephenson on evidence that various New York politicians sought to promote their candidacies through the publication of private college guidebooks with their pictures on the cover:

One more data point for the public choice view of politicians over fantasy that pols are selfless public servants.

I didn’t realize that public choice had some sort of a monopoly on considering politicians as having baser motives than serving the public good.