Will government growth bring more drug abuse and porn?

One of the most popular features on my radio program is entitled "Had Enough Government Yet?"

Driven by daily media stories of nanny state, busy-body politics at the local, state, and federal level, the feature invites listeners to contribute their own stories and contemplate how far we've come in this country from the Jeffersonian ideal of "He, who governs least, governs best".

For example, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to regulate the amount of salt that chefs can put into restaurant food. Congress prepares legislation that would have the federal government define what "food" is, license it, and regulate and inspect every "food" source, including your back yard garden and the local farmers' market.

Another example: An agency of the federal government, mirrored in many state governments, decries childhood obesity (using standards that make Arnold Schwarzenegger in his "Terminator" days overweight) and proposes to regulate the fat content of all "food." At the same time, another set of federal and state agencies cuts physical education classes in high school and feeds junk food to the students at our expense. And then are surprised by an "epidemic" of fat kids.

The BP Deepwater Horizon, the most federally regulated offshore oil drilling rig ever, blows out one mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in the worst oil spill disaster ever. In the spirit of using every crisis to advance the liberal agenda, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposes to abolish the single agency in charge of regulating and inspecting offshore rigs, and replacing it with three new federal agencies.

In fairness, Salazar had to do something drastic when it was discovered that the agency whose oversight failed to prevent the blowout was peppered with employees who spent their time doing drugs, taking bribes from the oil industry, and surfing the web for porn. The agency was known as the Minerals Management Service. Now comes the latest on the MMS, or as I call it, the Meth and Mammaries Service.