Jonah Goldberg has another good article which warns against overreaction by Congress in the wake of corporate accounting scandals.
The fact is, there’s a phenomena that my former roommate once identified that seems to be in play here. In essence, the government finds a problem, reacts to it, spends much time and effort to "fix" it, then creates a whole host of new problems – and the cycle repeats. In essence, it’s a giant governmental feedback loop.
Now that there’s a problem created by inattention to existing regulations, Congress is now drafting a whole host of new regulations, many of which will have unforseen negative consequences. Certainly there’s a case for strengthening penalties for violating the current laws, but the problem in these cases wasn’t a lack of regulations, it was that the existing ones were not being followed or enforced.
So Congress, in their election-year rush to seem proactive, are scrambling to fix problems few of them understand, in so doing will probably screw things up even more than they are already.
