One reason our economy may be sagging is surely the fact that so much money and time is going into growing government. Whereas capitalists will say free markets create prosperity because people are motivated to go about adding value to things if they wish to survive; government, as a general rule, adds value to nothing. Money goes in, and platitudes, regulations, and fines come out. People pay government to hurt themselves so they can stay out of jail and watch government bestow their profits on those who refuse to add value to society.

I don’t blame government. I blame people, like me, for going along with the plan. One simple piece of evidence that government has outgrown a functional size is contradictory legislation. All local legislation ends with severability clauses to salvage other parts of the statement should other parts be overridden by other legislation. Then, there are the lawyers who can’t agree on what the law says and go about drafting contracts that clearly aren’t in compliance with existing laws, and can never be 100% free of ambiguity. Then, there are all the community leaders who sit on boards, none of them humanly capable of grasping the body of law by which they’re supposed to abide.

That brings us to the recent scandals at the URTV (public access TV) board in Buncombe County. There was a flare-up when Richard Bernier took issue with the oath board members were supposed to sign. It committed the undersigned to solemnly swear:

. . . that I will keep confidential all the affairs of URTV, except to other members of this board in good standing or URTV staff, as necessary to the conduct of my duties.

Shortly after the complaint was raised, in another incident, the board’s executive director, Pat Garlinghouse, was caught on tape saying of the board meetings:

You can the meeting, but you cannot reproduce it. The video is only a documented version that you can share with someone who needs to know the information. You have no right to put it on TV or the Internet.

To put an end to the problems, the Buncombe County Commissioners are expected to amend the county’s management agreement with URTV to add:

URTV Board of Directors shall abide by North Carolina’s Open Meetings Law as same is set forth in North Carolina General Statutes §143-318.10 et seq.

Imagine! Government entering into an agreement requiring explicit obedience to law. One can only wonder how much a tax-funded attorney was paid to add that kind of value to the economy.