SENATOR McCAIN INTRODUCES “THE PIZZERIA FREEDOM ACT OF 2009”

October 22, 2009

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain today introduced legislation that would prohibit the Department of Health from enacting rules that would regulate pizzerias. The Department will meet today to determine whether the historically open sanitation and free flow of pizza home delivery should be subject to onerous federal regulation. Specifically, the Department will seek to impose “health safety” rules that would reign in the restaurant management practices of all pizza providers, including frozen pizza companies.

This government takeover of pizzerias will stifle innovation, in turn slowing our economic turnaround and further depressing an already anemic job market. Outside of health care, the fast food industry is the nation’s fastest growing job market. Innovation and job growth in this sector of our economy is the key to America’s future prosperity. In 2008, while most industries were slashing jobs in the worst economy in nearly 30 years, pizzerias actually added over 77,000 paying jobs. Just this month, Pizza Hut and Dominos both released positive earnings reports.

The frozen pizza industry exploded over the past twenty years due to limited government regulation. Frozen pizza makers invested $100 billion in infrastructure and development over the past three years which has led to faster cook times, more varieties in the marketplace and lower prices compared to any other country. Meanwhile, traditional pizzerias and restaurants have become a slow dying breed as they are mired in state and Federal regulations, sanitary requirements and limitations on rat feces.

“Today I’m pleased to introduce ‘The Pizzeria Freedom Act of 2009’ that will free pizzerias from government control and regulation,” said Senator John McCain. “It will allow for continued innovation that will in turn create more paying jobs for the millions of Americans who are out of work or seeking new employment,” McCain continued. “Keeping pizzerias free from oppressive regulations is the best stimulus for the current economy.

Ok. Ok. It's not the original but I decided to mash it up based upon what Craig Newmark stated on CNN.com. Based upon McCain's arguments in his actual statement, he must opine for the days of the Ma Bell monopoly. I originally debated altering his press release related to the housing anti-discrimination laws because I think they are more apropos but I ended going with the pizzas instead.

I highly doubt he will be able to get this bill anywhere. The point worth noting is he is firmly behind big business here. I would agree there are serious problems with the ancillary regulation issue under which the FCC is functioning. Having said that, though, I believe net neutrality needs to be legislated in some fashion. We saw just how good self-regulation recently did with hedge funds and all those volatile assets. Our economy is booming! It's never been better! We've seen how effective it was in the past in protecting the environment and we all know just how good it is in ensuring only quality hypnotherapist quacks can practice their nonsense.

Truth of the matter is this -- since before Teddy Roosevelt, big business has always complained that any disruption to their way of doing things would ruin life for all of us in one way or another. Why did they make those claims? Simple. They saw regulation as an interruption in their revenue stream. I'm not against companies making huge amounts of money but I am against them holding us captive in their network and demanding that we pay top dollar for their censored content. Many of these companies now hold regional monopolies or duopolies and they are afraid of innovation and competitive pressures. Already, their cable television income has certainly felt the heat of online providers such as Netflix and the P2P world of bittorrent. Under legislation such has McCain's, ISPs could conceivably ban any traffic from Netflix on their network unless Netflix paid them a ton of money or the customer paid extra to get to the service -- only to pay Netflix again for their service. Either way, the customer would pay more and end up loosing content, choice, and freedom.

If McCain really wants to keep the Internet running as well as it can, he needs to take off his myopic-big-business-ass-kissing glasses and see how what he suggests would influence things in the worst case scenario -- the one in which all content online is provided by the ISP and no one else unless th ISP gets paid big bucks. As we have seen in the past time and time again, the worst case often pops its head up and everyone gets fucked over. Count on it. There has to be checks and balances. The last thing this country needs is Time Warner, Comcast or other ISPs filtering content like some mini-Chinese (the great firewall of China) fiefdoms.

Image by: danagraves