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On the way back from Seattle,WA, I had to stop in Oregon to get gas, and to my surprise, Oregon has a very strange law. It is Illegal to pump your own gas. The girl working at the filling station informed me of this strange law as she pumped my gas. The union in that state is afraid that they are losing jobs and so they passed a law six years ago that makes it illegal to pump your own gas. This forces there to be at least two people working at a gas station at any given time. This also increases the price of gas. Although probably passed with the best of intentions, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If job creation is the only goal, I have a great way to create jobs. We could pay thugs money (1st job) to throw special window breaking bricks (2nd job to make the bricks) through the windows of shop owners. Then have insurance companies fill out claim (3rd job insurance agent)and window replacers fix the damaged property (4th job). If you fail to see how this is the same logic, you are falling for the same ruse that the Oregon legislature fell for. The creation of jobs is not a goal that lives in a bubble. Every law has an impact on the rest of the economy and the rest of the individuals.
With an extra employee, there is an increased cost for the owner of the gas station. This employee will not bear the whole cost of that employee though, some of that cost is passed along to the consumer. This consumer is either an employed individual, who now has less money to spend n things he would enjoy because he is spending more on gas, or even worse, now has fallen below the level where driving to work is profitable and he has to leave his job. On the other hand, the unemployed individual, who used to be able to drive to interviews, can no longer afford to look for work becasue the cost of transportation has gotten two high. This individual will remain unemployed and remain a cost to the state, further increase the taxes of the rest of the citizens of the state.
With all of the negative consequences that result from this absurd law, who benefits from this legislation? One person, the girl who pumped my gas. She now has a job, where she may have not had a job before. The cost per person is slight and the benefit to her is relatively great. Therefore, people don’t complain about the slight increase and harold the great job legislature did by creating jobs.
Oregon, it is time to think about the impact of your decisions outside of the little bubble that this law encompasses. Let this be a warning to the other states as well, people will eventually catch on the the rising costs everyone bears to help the few. Fiscal responsibility should be the word of the day, everyday, for lawmakers of this country.
