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Some Food for Thought: Government Efficiency
June 16, 2010
Following the president’s speech last night regarding the oil spill and cleanup efforts, I stayed around to watch some of the commentary just to see if I had missed any good observations. When FoxNews pundit Charles Krauthammer weighed in, I was not disappointed. (For the particular response referred to in this post, click here. For the full segment, click here).
This post is NOT about the oil spill, nor is it about the current administration. It is about the nature of government and our expectations thereof.
When asked what the government should have done, and if it could have done more to react to the spill, the response of Krauthammer, normally an outspoken critic of the current administration (labeled by National Review as Obama’s “critic-in-chief”) was surprisingly level-headed and difficult to dispute. Krauthammer replied that he was “not surprised” with the government’s reaction to the spill, and that governments are “inherently inefficient” and fallible, so we should not be shocked either. He did not let the administration off the hook by any means, nor did he belittle the tragic impact of this disaster. However, his reasoning should give us pause.
Are our expectations of government unreasonable? We know that it is “inherently inefficient,” and this fact has been cited repeatedly in recent arguments (healthcare, cap-and-trade, Social Security, and others). No American would dispute that, being an institution composed of fallible humans, the government is fallible. Many critics have said that the government is good for nothing except winning wars and paving roads. If this is the case, then is it fair for Americans to suddenly develop astronomical expectations for the administration’s efficiency when an unprecedented, unexpected crisis such as this one arises? Is Charles Krauthammer right to be unsurprised by the government’s reaction? And if he is right, does this make the critiques of the administration’s response partisan, and therefore factually unwarranted?
Applying this thought to a larger realm, should Americans have been “surprised” by the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina? Should we be “surprised” by the ongoing policy fight over illegal immigration? Is there a solution to government inefficiency, or should we learn to live with it?
Comments are welcome. It is important to know what we expect of our government, and what we should not expect.
There is no way I will willingly learn to live with it. I pray they will put me in my grave first, which is what it looks like the government is trying to do.
Solution? Less government=less inefficiency
Was the government going too far in creating the Federal Reserve in 1913? Many argue that it actually stabalized the economy to a considerable extent, allowed for growth, and, perhaps most importantly, allowed the financing of the allied war efforts of the World Wars. However, there’s also been significant inflation since Day 1 after the Reserve’s creation, and some argue the economy is ultimately more susceptible to large crashes, such as the Great Depression and our current slump. I would assume it also makes us more vulnerable to globalism and international banking decisions.
No, it is not “fair” to expect government to be efficient in a crisis. We can’t have it both ways, i.e., smaller government with more dependence on ourselves (states) for taking care of business, along with a belief that Washington will take care of us when something really bad comes along. If we really want to do it ourselves, we have to look at what monumental tasks are involved and be prepared to be responsible for bringing about the result we expect. Please pardon my generalization and simplification but we are like children. We want to be “the boss of ourself” but we want Dad and Mom to clean up after us when we make a mess. If we want to restore our country to its “roots” we must grow up and accept what being in control really entails. Who among us today will really pledge his property and his life for his “freedom” and honestly be prepared to honor that pledge? Our rights are God given however we have slowly but surely relinquished them to our elected leaders. Are we prepared, and willing, to do whatever it takes to regain them?
I think the missing reaction was that this is the job of government. The government has the ability to co-ordinate private sector and foreign help that even I as a small business owner would have realized and used. The commitment to unions, ridiculous environmental regulations and phony rhetoric were not the actions of leadership. If there had been concrete action that showed everything was being done that could be done, and it didn’t succeed I would not be upset or critical. But nothing concrete has been done. A no fly zone over the gulf (bad picture a no no), governors begging for sand birms, bureaucratic nonsense over skimming, foreign help refused, states having to buy foreign booms to deploy because the government wouldn’t let them buy American ones directly. Is there nothing the government hasn’t stood in the way of that would have helped? The truth will out that this government didn’t just fail they obstructed real help.
For the time line and actions taken you might want to visit.
The article is “70 days and still no clean up equipment to gulf”.