Do Away with the National Weather Service

Over the years, the Republicans have tried to eliminate many government agencies and services they don't like. Now, they are targeting the National Weather Service's publicly available weather forecasts. In a stunning example of the conservative vision of small, unintrusive government, Senator Santorum wants to help Americans decide their online source for weather information. Palm Beach Post reports

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

The right of Americans to choose their weather forecast providers apparently does not extend to services they have already paid for with their taxes.

To demonstrate the conservative zeal for free market economics, the Senator justifies the move by arguing that this free service negatively impacts the private sector services, which are also free.

It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar products and services for free.

After all, why would I go to the Weather Channel's free data when I can get the data for free from NWS? But then, hold on. If we take NWS data out of the picture, why would I go to the Weather Channel for free data when I can go to AccuWeather's free data? We had better shutdown Accuweather, because

It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when [AccuWeather] is providing similar products and services for free.

Oh, AccuWeather supports the bill. I guess we need to shut down the Weather Channel. Those crazy market forces just make things too confusing. We should just have one company, which the government will define, that will provide all data on the weather. That's the old Soviet American way.

Oh man. Like Josh Marshall wrote, "You just can't make this stuff up."