Toyota, DOT, NASA & Ray LaHood

This week's engagement of NASA by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood marks a new low in government harassment of companies in the private sector.

As I mentioned in passing in this post last month, Mr. LaHood was my 7th grade civics teacher. In writing that post, I checked his bio, and found that his brief teaching job at my Catholic primary school was essentially his only private sector employment. After that, he worked in a youth program elsewhere in Illinois, then became one of GOP House Minority Leader Bob Michel's staffers.

I point this out to provide an example of how professional, career politicians wreak havoc on companies attempting to operate in our mixed economy.

Mr. LaHood, having noted that his own DOT investigators found no smoking gun involving electronic controls in Toyota acceleration systems, is extending the witch hunt by calling in NASA engineers.

It's a travesty. How many investigations must Toyota endure? Where is the due process?

The way LaHood is operating, it's as if Toyota is presumed guilty, and the Transportation Department will continue to investigate for an unspecified length of time, until it finds 'something.'

Any findings of 'no cause' won't stop him. Or the witch hunt.

Granted, having been accused of attacking Toyota on behalf of government-owned GM, Mr. LaHood has provided a fig leaf by claiming to have NASA investigate acceleration systems on vehicles of many vendors. But one senses this is just a formality.

After all, Toyota is the company that was recently persecuted by a Congressional committee. Does anyone really believe LaHood expects NASA investigators to find problems where none have been alleged, outside of Toyota?

This farce is yet another example of what is continuing to go seriously wrong in our nation, as government interferes to ever greater degrees in the operation of businesses.