We know now that the state’s Texas Youth Commission was obscenely managed. The Texas Lottery was a scandal ridden mess a while back. The abuses of the Children’s Health Insurance Program are a lesson in lunacy. Name a government agency, and it’s been scandal plagued, mismanaged, or worse. And those are things legislators are supposedly elected to manage!
Â
So it is nothing short of stupefying to find that the Republican-controlled Legislature seems to think they can accurately manage the private business of business better than the business owners. Whether it is telling a business owner she cannot allow employees or customers to smoke in the business (private property rights), or trying to undo a billion-dollar private corporate takeover (the TXU/KKR deal), legislators just seem to be itching to find ways to interfere in the private marketplace.
Â
Call it a hunch, but something tells me you manage your business a lot better than the state legislature has managed TYC. And I bet you know the needs of your customers, clients and colleagues better than the lawyers who sit in the Texas House and Senate.
Â
Whether it is legal conduct in a place of business, or deciding when to buy or sell a business, the state legislature shouldn’t be involved. The marketplace does a better job of ensuring fairness, accuracy, profitability, consumer protection, and general happiness, than lawmakers in Austin.
