Curmudgeon's Corner

Too Big To Work?

Posted by Al Campbell on June 15, 2010

Economy, Political, Quality of Life, U.S.

We have heard the phrase, “too big to fail” and for many, many months.  That has me wondering if there is another phrase that ought to become just as familiar to us.

Is our federal government “too big to work"?  There are so many examples of the failures of our federal government that I have to wonder if the government that has grown itself for years has finally reached that point where it simply can’t function properly any longer?

This seems to have really been exacerbated with the current Administration but it has been more and more apparent for several administrations.  It seems now to have reached the point where it truly is “too big to work”.  One agency’s rules fly in the face of another’s; the familial infighting hinders results; the people suffer from the damages inflicted and from the increased cost of government.

Gridlock has its good points as far as Congress but it has no place in such situations as the Gulf spill debacle.

We continue to feed the monster and it continues to waste our money with little to show for the effort except to add more employees and to spend even more money.  We have watched as the ineptitude shows itself in the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  Were it not so terribly devastating, this would be high comedy on the order of Monty Python.

The states that are in the middle are showing better ideas than are the feds.  Louisiana’s Governor has been far more effective in trying to mount the proper responses but has been rendered impotent by the federal government.  There are demonstrable commercial solutions available and those have been ignored…probably because it would be embarrassing to the feds to have to admit that the private sector could actually do something better than government.

Our President has made numerous speeches and held numerous news conferences and nothing changes.  He orders this and that and throws more money at the problem, and nothing changes.  He has come to the point that he never dreamed would happen to him. He is unable to solve problems of this magnitude by talking.

The response to the gulf disaster is farcical.  Not only was BP unprepared, but our federal government was nowhere near as prepared as was BP.  We all know that there is more than enough blame to go around but that doesn’t change the lack of results.  That doesn’t help the people or the environment.

The shutdown of drilling helps even less.  If our government had been prepared as we have been led to believe, and been inspecting and regulating as we had been led to believe, there might well have been no disaster; and, had it occurred anyway, there might well have been a much more well-thought and coordinated and timely response by our government.

And what will this prompt?  It will prompt a call from the President and the Congress for even more federal regulation that won’t do a thing but add to our financial burdens.  In the words of Rahm Emanuel, this is another crisis that won’t be permitted to go to waste.  It will spawn yet another attempt to give us “cap and trade” legislation even after it was scuttled once previously.  Government is too big to work.