Raise Your Hand If You're Surprised

This is yet another installment in the long-running series, Government Should Do Only Those Things That Only Government Can Do (Or Can Do Most Efficiently), and should get out of the social engineering and progressive ideology businesses:

It seemed a perfect symmetry: California, the world's high-tech capital, would lead the way in recycling the debris of our digital revolution.

But five years after its launch, the state government-run electronic waste program stands out not as a model of the green innovation for which California is famous but as an example of good intentions gone awry.

By paying more than $320 million to collect and recycle computer monitors and televisions, the state has built a magnet for fraud totaling tens of millions of dollars, including illegal material smuggled in from out of state.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/18/2897609/californias-pioneering-e-waste.html#ixzz0uAxfO7PO

The classic line, showing complete liberal naivete?

"I don't think anybody could have forecast the greed that has poisoned the program," said Bob Erie, chief executive officer of E-World Recyclers north of San Diego and once an enthusiastic supporter of the state effort.