Are You Insured?

by Paul Hein

Understanding modern government is easier if you think of it as it thinks of itself: a big, benevolent insurance company. Your taxes are the premium; you get protected from--everything!

There is some justification for this idea. The government envisioned by the Founders was to provide protection of one’s life, liberty, and property. The difference, though, is that the government of the Constitution was to safeguard these things by punishing those who sought to deprive others of them. Modern government offers “positive” protection, by enforcing a way of life that, according to government, provides maximum security from harm not yet inflicted, and dangers heretofore unrecognized.

Of course, the abject failure of government to do that is obvious, but, to those enamored of big government, its failures only argue for the need to make it still larger and stronger. And if there are no obvious dangers from which we need protection, they will be invented. Government is its own reason for existing. Consider asparagus.

The newspaper editorial section bore a large headline: How Safe Is That Imported Asparagus? As an asparagus lover, I was instantly filled with apprehension! What’s the problem? A large picture of asparagus bore the caption “49.4 percent of asparagus is imported.” The picture of bananas was labeled, “99.7 percent of bananas are imported.” Tomatoes? 33.7 percent imported. Spices? 62 percent. The problem, it turns out, is that fruit and vegetables enter this country virtually inspection-free! God help us!

In 1992, we are told, about 8 percent of incoming foods were sampled. Today the figure is 1 percent. The FDA, which does the sampling, has only about one inspector for each of the 350 ports of entry. That, it would seem, is the problem.

But is it? If only one-eighth as many samplings of imported fruits and vegetables take place today as compared with 1992, has the incidence of produce-borne disease increased eightfold? In fact, what IS the incidence of produce-borne disease?  It seems odd that we’re not told, when that would seem to be the crux of the matter.

The author compares the FDA with the USDA, which inspects incoming meat products, and the foreign plants that produce them. The USDA can block the importation of meat products that it considers tainted. The FDA should be made more like the USDA, it is argued. But wait a minute: Wasn’t the last epidemic of food poisoning due to E. Coli in meat? In fact, haven’t there been several such epidemics in recent years? Evidently, the USDA isn’t awfully effective at protecting us. Have we had epidemics due to contaminated asparagus? Or bananas? Or tomatoes?

In addition to giving the FDA more power, we should give it more men. In fact, the author recommends increasing the inspectors by 1000 percent! That would mean that 10 percent of imported produce would be inspected, not just 1 percent! Aha! A quantum leap in safety. Of course, 10 percent inspected means 90 percent not inspected. Well, at least it’s a step in the right direction, I guess, like using a bucket brigade to bail out the Titanic. Except in this case, no catastrophe is imminent, or even predicted.

But, of course, all that could change. The author warns that few safeguards are in place regarding the inspection of food. He means, I suppose, few federal safeguards, for otherwise his statement is nonsense. The marketplace provides the ultimate, and best, safeguard. If the customers of a supermarket chain reported gastro-intestinal distress after eating tomatoes from producer X, do you suppose the market would continue to deal with that producer? (Are you going to buy Enron stock?) Of course, the food marketplace can only react after someone becomes ill, but we have seen that government simply cannot protect us from misfortunes of any kind. And even if produce passed thorough inspections at the port of entry, couldn’t it become contaminated subsequently?

Bigger and stronger government is the answer, all right, but not to the problem, if any, of food safety. Rather, it is the answer to growing economic problems (Uncle Sam is the borrower of last resort) and the problem (I hope!) of a restive people beginning to awaken to the fact that government, itself, and of its nature, is THE problem The protection we need is from government, not by it.

May 7, 2002