One would think we were dealing with a major national security issue considering how worked up New York politicians get about garbage. But that’s what happens when you have a government-controlled garbage market. New York manages the state’s waste with 20-year plans — much like the economic plans that the former Soviet Union used to “manage” their economy. The waste plans work about as well as the economic plans of the former Soviet Union. They are subject to never-ending political wrangling that constantly places hurdles in the way of rational options. In the late1990s, the closing of the city’s “Fresh Kills” landfill on Staten Island led to an uproar as New York increased trash exports to Virginia landfills.