Are Reston and the DTR coming to this? "How Class Warfare Begins"

Peter Funt, who leads the Candid Camera company his father created about a half-century ago, writes with a wry, even sarcastic, eye in looking at the evolving state of public financial affairs.  This article was published in the Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2012:

How Class Warfare Begins

By PETER FUNT

PUBLISHED: February 11, 2012  

There’s class warfare in the U.S. all right. Good examples can be found at the nation’s airports and on its highways.

California is replacing HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes on some major highways in Silicon Valley with what ought to be called HRL—High Roller Lanes. The idea is to raise money by allowing single-occupant vehicles to travel in the speedy carpool lanes, provided motorists are willing to pay a fee.

Instead of rewarding all citizens for carpooling to reduce congestion and pollution, the California approach means affluent drivers can ignore those concerns, while others—referred to lately as the 99%—must still carpool, or face lengthy delays in the poor people’s lanes.

At airports, passengers with expensive tickets or elite status breeze through TSA checkpoints, while others wait in lines that are often quite long. Like highways, which are publicly owned and operated, airport security is a government operation that supposedly guarantees equal rights for all. Why are airlines allowed to sell premium customers the rights to faster government inspections?

Here’s some free advice for needy, greedy government agencies (although for a fee, I’ll send any bureaucrat my Premium Column, which has my really good ideas). . . .

To get a peak at Mr. Funt's other "really good ideas", please click here.   It's humorous, but with enough truth to be a bit scary.