Government-run health care is a bad idea for many reasons, not the least of which is that government is just plain dumb. A useful case in point is Daylight Saving Time. Twice a year, at a signal from our masters in Washington, we all dutifully reset our clocks. Why? Because, in its wisdom, the government has decided this bizarre ritual will conserve energy.
Well, like so many policies cooked up by those geniuses inside the Beltway, it turns out that DST actually worsens the problem it was implemented to solve. Because Indiana resisted the twice yearly clock change for so long, its 2006 acquiescence offered a good test case to measure the effect of DST on energy consumption. The Toronto Star reports the results:
Instead of saving electricity and money by adding an extra hour of sunlight to evenings most of the year, it cost Indiana homes an extra $8.6 million in electricity bills – mostly from chugging air conditioners – each year.
And this extra energy consumption isn’t just expensive. Some believe it also has serious implications for the environment:
‘There are social and environmental costs associated with daylight savings time because of the pollution emissions and carbon dioxide emissions contributing to climate change,’ [UC-Santa Barbara economics professor] Matthew Kotchen says.
Even if you are (as I am) skeptical of many of the claims made about “climate change,” it’s hard to see how it make sense to spend extra money to dump more emissions into the atmosphere. So, why has the government not figured this out? Because government is dumb.
Think about this the next time some politician says the government should have a larger role in health care.
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