OK, unlike Ms. Schlafly, for whom I have great respect, I’m not bothered in principle about letting Mexican truckers on our highways. I can think of a host of complications which I hope the Bush Administration was concerned about. But in principle I think the greater freedom we allow for people to travel and buy and sell freely the better off we will be as a whole. Companies that need to be politically protected are not viable in the long term and their members need to find new industries where their work is more appreciated (work that will be more available the if other prices are allowed to descend.

But what really bothers me is that “100 Mexican trucking companies will be allowed to make deliveries anywhere in the United States, and she put no limit on the number of trucks the 100 companies can operate.”  Why a hundred companies?  What’s up with that?  Are these the total number of companies in Mexico?  What about the 101st?  Did they just not have the lobbyists?

I hate to see the US promoting the importance of political favors rather than the importance of the free market.