How Many Tax Dollars Do We Give To The Government To Lecture Us On How To Live Our Lives?

You know what bothers me? All these public service announcements that lecture us about drinking or exercising or smoking or buckling our seat belts and all sorts of other things that are paid for by our tax dollars.
I talked about this a bit toward the end of last night’s radio show (download it here). Does anyone ever get curious about how many tax dollars our government spends on lecturing us on how to live our lives? Check out the Ad Council, for instance, which is a national organization that specializes in Public Service Announcements. Here’s a listing of their current campaigns. Click around a bit and see how many of them are sponsored by one government entity or another. That means your tax dollars are paying for them.
Is that appropriate?
It’s not really politically tenable to criticize this sort of thing. Because if you come out against PSA’s about wearing your seatbelt then obviously you want people to die in car crashes. If you come out against PSA’s against gun violence, then obviously you want people to shoot each other (by the way, that gun violence PSA is sponsored by the Department of Justice).
And it’s more than just a national phenomena. I’m sure most of you have seen PSA’s sponsored by your state at one time or another. Here in North Dakota our Attorney General and chief health department bureaucrat are getting ready to combat underage drinking with a fierce barrage of brochures.
Which makes me wonder if what’s at the heart of all this isn’t some pure (if Orwellian) intent to educate the public on how to live the right way but rather simple rent seeking on the part of big ad agencies that undoubtedly make millions, if not billions, off these ads.