The Railroad Safety Act Makes Railroads Less Safe

One of modern politicians’ worst habits is “doing something” following a natural or man-made disaster like a hurricane, mass shooting, or financial crisis. The “something” is usually an expansion of government power. Rarely, if ever, do legislators ask whether existing regulations may have helped cause the problem—or whether the government’s solution creates new problems or fails to prevent future ones. Even rarer is for politicians to concede that there was nothing the government or private sector could have done to prevent the crisis du jour. In such cases, spending more money and imposing more regulations on private institutions would simply be a waste of time and money.