The Red Queen’s Race

No new amendments appeared this week, and I completed Office Actions on two that I already had, so I’m down to one amendment on my Amended docket, and one Board of Appeals affirmance on my Expedited docket.

I have started work on my oldest Regular New case.

“A Marshall Plan for —“

On Monday, the Washington Post printed a column by eight mayors, the first-named being Mr. Peduto of Pittsburgh, proposing a Marshall Plan for Middle America, meaning that they wanted the federal government to give their cities sixty billion dollars or so. I sent the paper a letter questioning their proposal, and reviewing Pittsburgh’s history of implementing and then abandoning a two-rate property tax. The Post has not printed it yet, although I have entirely given up hope; the paper did print a letter Friday endorsing the idea.

One may note that people proposing a multi-billion dollar government project typically call it “a Marshall Plan for x.” The Marshall Plan, which helped Europe recover after World War Two, was one government program which was implemented in special circumstances, did its job successfully, and was terminated. Other government programs have often been less successful, or have led to unanticipated consequences, or have dragged on after their original justification expired, or have done some good for someone, but only at considerable cost to taxpayers with needs of their own. You may note that people rarely say, “We need a Great Society for x,” or “We need an East African groundnut scheme for y.”