Safety, security are there if we fund them

Highway speeders deplore traffic cameras. Labeled firewood is satirized. Corporations fuss about the costs of installing scrubbers on chimneys or waste treatment systems for hog farms. Mining and oil companies take safety shortcuts to maximize profits.

Almost every regulation has come about because of people's dangerous behavior, environmental threats, disregard for employee safety, the action of deranged individuals or plain stupidity of some person or group. Would we really want to diminish the reach of the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and similar government “bureaucracies” charged with protecting our food, air, water and health, just for the sake of downsizing the government or “getting the government off our backs”? (Except, evidently, when it relates to who can marry whom, or who is to regulate female reproduction.)

As the country's population grows, do we nevertheless want fewer teachers, police, firefighters, IRS employees to process tax returns, court clerks to manage the judicial system?

We are born into a social network that provides us safety and security only to the extent that we are willing to extend those assurances to our fellows and pay our share of the costs. If we renege on that obligation, society becomes weaker and less able to provide for the general welfare of all its citizens.

Joan Falconer

Iowa City