Although firm by firm, financial reasons for shifting costs or cutting coverage may seem compelling, U.S. business as a whole doesn't escape paying for the health care of the employees and their families impacted by those decisions. Consequently, the lack of a universal health-care system handicaps Corporate America in the global market chase. Supplying trucks for the U.S. Postal Service that run on taxpayer-subsidized ethanol to earn CAFE ''credits'' is only one of the distortions this misbegotten law has brought forth. Thanks to CAFE's arbitrarily set fuel-efficiency standard, auto makers waste millions producing vehicles that consumers don't want. The attempt to force-feed Americans these undersized vehicles has failed primarily because buyers know they are less safe than their larger counterparts.
Death is a high price to pay for automotive political correctness.
CAFE is a splendid example of mission creep. Created to encourage energy efficiency and reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, it has accomplished neither. Now touted as a means to combat global warming, CAFE is in reality the biggest threat to highway safety. It is a mystery to me, then, why he objected to my coverage of the International Coffee Agreement. With its ''tourist coffee,'' smugglers, black market, millionaire speculators, and midnight meetings, the ICA was hardly boring.