 Aloha, I'm Kelea Akina, president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. To borrow from Tolstoy's famous quote about families, good laws are often alike, but bad laws are bad in their own way. Now, this comes to mind because in July I attended Freedom Fest 2019 in Las Vegas, where I participated in a panel discussion on the dirty dozen of federal laws moderated by popular television journalist John Stossel. Such laws cost billions of dollars, typically benefiting a few at the expense of the many, and just make life harder for the average American. These are laws that eat away at our liberties. Because I was there to represent Hawaii, I focused on measures that we in the Aloha state have had the most experience with. That's why I started with the way the federal government enables large wasteful transportation boondoggles through the promise of federal grants. We all know about the Honolulu Rail and its cost overruns, but there are many other transportation projects around the country that have burned through taxpayer dollars in similar fashion. Earlier this year, California canceled a high-speed rail project that had more than doubled its $33 billion budget. Then there are projects like Boston's 17-year Big Dig, or Alaska's famous Road to Nowhere. As I explained, the federal government needs to stop dangling money over the heads of ambitious politicians. Instead, it should approach big transportation projects with skepticism. Especially when there are new technologies on the horizon or private options that would be more effective. Next, I focused on the U.S. Sugar Program, a collection of regulations such as price guarantees, quotes, and tariffs meant to protect the U.S. sugar industry. The result is that American sugar costs twice as much as sugar from overseas. A fellow panelist pointed out that one unintended consequence of the higher sugar prices was that people starting at the less expensive higher, I mean starting the less expensive high fructose syrup as a sweetener instead, which has been disastrous to public health and probably cost the government tens of billions of dollars more in public health spending. Now, ironically, sugar cane growers in Hawaii claimed for years that they needed the sugar program to survive. But ultimately, it didn't save sugar in our state. Meanwhile, we continue to pay for more sugar. Of course, no discussion of archaic protectionist laws would be complete without a mention of the Jones Act. In Hawaii, we understand that our cost of living is higher because all cargo carried between U.S. ports must be on ships owned, flagged, and built in the United States and mostly crewed by Americans. I shared the story of local ranchers who have to fly their cattle to the mainland because shipping is so expensive. But I also mentioned examples affecting mainland residents, such as New Englanders, who find it cheaper to import fuel from abroad than by ship from Texas. To mitigate these absurdities, I recommended updating the Jones Act for the 21st century, specifically by allowing our transportation companies to do what our military is allowed to do, mainly by ships from our allies who build them for a fraction of the U.S. cost. Finally, I talked about the common thread that runs through many of the dirty dozen, the intrusion of the federal government into matters that should be left to the states or the people. Whether it's meddling in the marketplace or persuading municipalities to commit to costly boondoggles, a lack of federal government restraint leads to bad laws. Now, unfortunately, we are the ones who pay, whether in higher taxes, higher prices, or the loss of liberty. That's why we should always look with skepticism at laws that erode federalism. The last thing we need is more candidates for the dirty dozen. Oh, and what other laws rounded out the list? We didn't have time to talk about it, but as summarized by Stossel, they were the FDA banning and trying things, the Endangered Species Act, the Antiquities Act, Controlled Substance Laws, the Safe Harbor Exemption from Anti-Kickback Laws, the Dodd-Frank Act, Sital Acid Forfeiture, and Congress delegating its authority to regulatory agencies. Need I go on? You can view the entire panel discussion on YouTube by going to grassrootinstitute.org. That's grassrootinstitute.org. Until next time, hey, hana kakou. Let's work together. I'm Keli Iakina with the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. Aloha.