In last week’s Acton Commentary, “Food Fights and Free Enterprise,” I take a look at the food truck phenomenon in US cities, sometimes called a “craze.”
In the companion blog post, “Food Trucks and First Steps,” I refer to Milton Friedman’s observation that there is a difference between being pro-market and pro-business. Art Carden has more on this over at Forbes.
As I note in the piece, the fight over food trucks is not just the stuff of big cities. The Carolina Journal has been following for some time the various dimensions of the political fights over food trucks in North Carolina, in both Raleigh and around the state.
One of the pieces of particular interest shows how political lobbyists for established businesses, in this case restaurants, can use legislation and regulations to squeeze out competition. But as Sara Burrows writes in “Regulations Hinder Food Truck Ministries,” these actions have negative impacts on faith ministries that would otherwise be helping to put people to work and getting them off the government aid rolls.
As Pastor Michael King says,
“But it’s obvious there is not a will in government to help the folks that don’t have jobs to create their own jobs,” he said. “They talk about wanting to create jobs. But it appears the folks they’re concerned about are only those who can go to the bank and borrow a bunch of money and put money in the ground.
“We don’t want them to be on government assistance,” he continued. “But the government is putting these rules in place and forcing the people to go on government assistance. How are you going to bring down government spending if you are putting rules in place so even if people want to create a job for themselves, they can’t?”