Editorials

Americans are seeing inflation at every turn these days with gasoline prices soaring and the price of everything from airline tickets to lawn care following suit.

Many tend to look to Congress to do something to correct the situation, and some legislators think they can run just about anything better than the private sector.

You can hear suggestions that all we need to straighten things out is to get government control of more things. But before jumping on that bandwagon people ought to take a closer look at the things that already come under the government's jurisdiction.

Several examples could be mentioned where government ownership and operation has not been highly successful, especially for the taxpayers.

In recent days some interesting information has emerged on the United States Senate restaurant. Prices there don't seem under any better control than those at the gasoline pump.

A simple sandwich and chips goes for $11.50, which still looks quite a bit above the average in a private sector eating place even though the price includes coffee or tea. But if you want to buy those solo, a gallon of brewed coffee costs $26. That makes $4 a gallon gasoline seem almost reasonable.

But it looks like inflation is about to hit the Senate restaurant prices, too.

"In fiscal year 2007, the restaurant lost $1.3 million, and we could easily see losses topping $2 million this year," the chief clerk of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee informed Senators in a recent e-mail. "The price for food and other items may need to be increased at least 25 percent."

It is not just recently the restaurant has run into financial problems. "Since 1993, losses have averaged over $900,000 annually, and taxpayers have been required to provide $18.1 million in operational subsidies," the clerk wrote. That's a pretty sizeable tab taxpayers have had to pick up for senators' sandwiches in their own restaurant.

Other government-supported businesses also lose money selling food, said Ed Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation.

The General Accounting Office reports that in 2003, Amtrak lost $80 million on food. And the actual costs to taxpayers may be much higher.

Heritage transportation specialist Ronald Utt wrote last year, "Amtrak spends another $50 million annually to operate and maintain its dining, snack and lounge cars." That's over and above what it loses on food. Of course, the entire government operated passenger train operation loses even more millions on its passenger service.

Our government could save taxpayers a lot of money by simply getting out of the restaurant business, Feulner suggests. And the Senate has moved in that direction, voting to privatize its restaurants.

Despite such failures in the government restaurant business, not to mention other things, the people losing money in these government ventures believe they can do a much better job handling the far-more-involved energy business, Feulner said.

During recent hearings on Capitol Hill, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told oil company executives: "This liberal will be all about socializing, uh. Uh ... would be about ... basically taking over and the government running all of your companies."

Senators also recently debated a bill (Lieberman-Warner) that would have effectively given Washington control of the nation's energy supply, Feulner added.

There clearly is no business operating success on the part of Congress that suggests bureaucrats could do a better job developing energy sources.

Oil companies make a lot of money, but they manage to do that by doing the increasingly challenging hard work of getting oil out of the ground and turning it into gasoline, for which there is great demand, Feulner said. The government, meanwhile, manages to lose money selling something everybody wants - food.

Part of the reason gasoline prices are so high are federal policies already in place.

It is folly to believe any new federal controls or regulations on energy production would improve prices or production.

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