We are currently hobbled by a whole host of federal government debacles. An endless litany of Government Operator Errors (GOEs).
Many are chronic. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are staring down $84 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities – simply staggering, nationally debilitating GOEs. And there is oh-so-much-more.
U.S. Postal Service Might End Saturday Delivery to Help Close $238 Billion Gap
Washington Spends $25 Billion Annually Maintaining Unused or Vacant Federal Properties
Amtrak Has Consumed $40 Billion in Subsidies Over Last Four Decades
Many more GOEs are of the current Administration’s making. There is of course ObamaCare – a slow motion train wreck that continues its shamble off the tracks into oblivion. But that is not even close to all.
There is Benghazi, Libya. Fast and Furious. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) abuse of conservative and Tea Party groups. The National Security Administration (NSA) spying on just about everyone on the planet.
The Administration’s asserted defense on all of these? Incompetence. They themselves say that this endless parade of horribles is solely the result of Government Operator Error.
Let’s for the sake of this exercise take them at their word – that this is just boobery, not (also) malevolence. On one level, it certainly makes sense. A $3.9-trillion-a-year federal Leviathan has miles and miles of room for Government Operator Error.
David Axelrod was a chief Administration architect of its $900-billion-per-year growth of government. Who then said the government is “so vast” there was no way the President knew of any of his Administration’s myriad GOEs.
Sad, but maybe true.
True in part because of the Wallet Rule. Which is: Imagine you go out on a Friday night with your wallet. You then go out the following Friday night with my wallet. On which Friday night will you have more fun?
With my wallet, of course. It’s always a lot more fun to spend other people’s money. You don’t expend nearly as prudently, wisely or well as you do when it’s your coin. Government, of course, is always on other people’s money.
Another huge contributing factor is the Administration-admitted incompetence. Government is made up of less talented people bossing around more talented people – from afar.
If someone is really good at the stock market – they’ll be doing it, not voting for or imposing Dodd-Frank to lord over it. If someone is really good at health insurance – they’ll be doing it, not voting for or imposing ObamaCare. As President Barack Obama himself just said:
“What we‘re discovering is that . . . insurance is complicated to buy.“
“We’re” not just discovering it, Mister President – YOU are. We’ve known all along – because we’ve been doing it.
Everything in the private sector is complicated. Our $16.6 trillion economy is a glorious, giant, intricate, complicated mess. Remade anew every day by the ideas, decisions, actions, successes and failures of 300+ million people.
To think that the perpetrators of perpetual, countless GOEs can manage this cacophony better than those of us doing it – with actual skin in the game – is…absurd.
Yet these self-avowed failures are looking to control even more of it than they already flailingly do. For instance, they are with great and growing intensity looking to GOE the Internet-Technology sector.
This Administration imposed Network Neutrality. Because they will manage the complex, intricate World Wide Web’s wired networks much better than the people who spend hundreds of billions of dollars building, developing and maintaining them.
This Administration imposed cell phone price caps. Because they will manage the complex, intricate wireless networks much better than the people who spend hundreds of billions of dollars building, developing and maintaining them.
This Administration asked Congress to insert it into what should be a private sector secondary wireless spectrum auction. And is now contemplating the imposition of anti-free market rules on said auction. Because they know how the spectrum should be bought and sold – and be used once it is purchased – better than the people buying and selling it.
How micro-manage ridiculous can government get? It is picking local television station lineups and placement – over and over again.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Tells Comcast to Put Bloomberg TV Among News Channels
FCC Orders NFL Network Back on Time Warner
FCC Requires Cablevision to Carry WRNN in New Communities Reached by the Expanded WRNN DTV Signal
Court: FCC Can’t Force Comcast to Carry Tennis Channel in Cable Bundle
Our federal government is $4 trillion huge – and run by self-described Incompetents delivering avalanches of Government Operator Errors.
They need to be looking to do a whole lot less – not for other things to add to their To Undo lists.
[Originally published on the PJ Tatler]
Seton Motley is the president of Less Government, a DC-based non-profit organization dedicated to reducing the power of government and protecting the First Amendment from governmental assault.
