Over at Robert Stacy McCain’s blog, The Other McCain, there’s something about the one thing that our government does with brilliant efficiency: creating expensive problems.

McCain’s latest article is about Republican candidate for CA29, John Colbert. But what caught my eye is this:

California is the scene of one of the most spectacular failures of liberal environmental policy, the cutoff of irrigation to farmers into the Central Valley. Instituted by federal mandate to save a tiny endangered fish, the delta smelt, this policy has created a new “Dust Bowl” estimated to have cost $703 million in lost farm revenue and 21,000 jobs in California, already hard hit by unemployment and with a projected $21 billion state budget shortfall.

“It’s just obscene,” Colbert told the Altadena group Saturday, recounting his recent tour through the once-prosperous farming region. “It’s congressional terrorism.” . . .

Wow. “Instituted by federal mandate,” eh? This is what federal government can do to the health of the planet, imagine what they will further do for health care. Or the entire economy. “Dust bowl” indeed.