Chris Good is a staff editor at TheAtlantic.com, where he writes for the magazine’s Politics Channel and almost certainly gets paid for thinking. Yesterday he wrote “The Case Against Making BP Pay” in which he suggests that the law capping liability for an accidental oil spill at $75 million under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, should NOT be waived in the case of BP. What is this guy smoking?
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Chris,
You’ve got it backward. The point is NOT that “…lifting the cap disincentivizes lawmakers from making good laws.” Lifting the cap disincentivizes the Congress from making BAD LAWS.
Suppose you tell the kids it’s okay start a fire in the stove every morning so long as they are careful. It’s just plain stupid to tell them that they will be grounded for no more than one weekend even if, in their enthusiasm, thy get creative and decide to use gasoline as starter fluid!
You’ve got one thing right “…we should at least recognize that it’s perhaps better not to make a habit of creating rules that later have to be waived.”
