Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
A former federal judge looked at the Grand Jury evidence and explains why they got it right.
Joe Doakes
I’m not one to trust government much or easily. But there’s a “government and its institutions are always wrong!” current among some of my libertarian friends that, while not entirely inaccurate, is more and more tending to serve as a substitute for reason and thought. And that’s no better than some slavering droog who drools over reruns of “Cops”.
as libertarian as I may be…government isn’t “always” wrong as a blanket statement, but because we are (or at least should be) self governed, and human…government can get it wrong from time to time.
However, my view is that government is always wrong when it attempts (and usually fails) to take on “non-government” roles.
I tend more towards the libertarian side, and I have to say that having worked inside the government the attitude shouldn’t be that “government and its institutions are always wrong!”, it should be that “government and its institutions are nearly always incompetent.”
That incompetence is a direct result of the political process operating upon a bureaucracy in a way that benefits the political process. When you realize that basic fact, you can see why only the only efficient parts of government arises from things that directly benefit a politician, not the public. Take, for example, IRS audits, just to pick something random.
I have to agree with nerdbert, but I think the political process operating on the bureaucracy has such a debilitating effect is that people (including politicians) seem to have a hard time “believing” in incentives outside of their own personal sphere.
The incentives for bureaucrats are worse than perverse:
* Did you save a ton of money and spend less than your budget?
* No recognition and budget is cut next year.
* Do you maintain some government function frugally, year after year?
* Too bad because your importance/promote-ability is tied to your budget size.
* Did you throw millions of tax payer dollars at a vendor for a money-pit app?
* You might get a bonus!
With people advocating for a higher minimum wage, regardless of the incentives and the consequences created, it’s really hard to see it getting better. 🙁
Troy, as ludicrous as your examples are, it’s the procurement system that’s even more horribly broken and it results in a lot of the examples you cite.
As a peon in the Federal system, you want to buy something that isn’t “petty cash.” That has to go out to bid to vendors who have navigated the Feds byzantine vetting process and who are willing to do the paperwork, the EEOC regulations of which are enough to require one full time person. But the bidding process is nearly two quarters, after which the results are published and any losers are given an opportunity to appeal (and they nearly always do), at which point it is now 9-18 months after you decided you need something until you get it.
Or you can push it off to a contractor with whom you have a general services contract who will mark it up 500-1000% to account for all the paperwork it’ll require, but you’ll have it on the same timeline as a normal purchaser.
Which way will you go as an employee trying to get something done? Not that you’ll be trying to get something done after years of fighting that kind of system. You’ll wind up just putting your feet on your desk and browsing p0rn while waiting for “the system” to work as it was designed.
And all this is because the purchasing system was abused by some folks in the past. But rather than punishing/firing those folks, it was politically expedient to crow about how it’d never happen again because of all the safeguards that politicians had put in place. But making sure nothing bad can happen winds up making sure that nothing good can happen, either.