The Trick Play

It's football season.  Even if you're not remotely interested in the games and don't follow a team at any level, you can't help but notice.  While this isn't remotely about football, I think there's a very valid comparison to be made between football and Congress, so I'm going to ask your indulgence for a moment.

A term that we hear in football sometimes is "Trick Play."  The usual meaning is that the team with the ball did something unexpected...they "tricked" the defense.  Most often that's an unexpected on-side kick, maybe a fake punt, or even something known as the Statue of Liberty play.

The truth in Regulations

One of the current political battles deals with the concept of Regulation.  At this point it's pretty much a shouting match, with most of the shouting coming from the GOP candidates, each convinced that the US would be a better place if there was less governmental regulation.  House Speaker John Boehner has even gone so far as to say that the Job Creators are on strike because of Regulations, and now the Tea Party is circulating a letter to small businesses, asking them to Not Hire until the current President is out of office.  In other words, make things worse so we can be elected.

However, the concept of regulation is largely a straw man, created from whole cloth and designed, much like the patter of a stage magician, to distract the audience from the sleight of hand going on else where.