Posted by
Resa on Monday, April 02, 2007 9:52:49 AM
We often say that government
enterprises fail to work properly, but that usually is not true.
Yes, the government schools leave thousands of children illiterate,
government floodwalls fail, FEMA leaves people stranded, mining
inspectors ignore dangerous conditions that result in the deaths of
miners, VA hospitals have rats and mold, the Post Office regularly
raises its rates while providing poor service, the military pays $200
for a hammer or a toilet seat, and Medicare and Social Security are
going bankrupt, but that does not mean these enterprises are failing to
work properly.
If you think these government enterprises are failing, you simply have
the wrong perspective. If you think the schools are supposed to
teach children to read, mining inspectors are supposed to protect
miners from dangerous conditions, and Medicare is supposed to serve the
elderly, then you completely misunderstand the real purpose of these
enterprises.
The children in the schools, the miners in the mines, and the elderly
who are dependent on Medicare and Social Security are simply props in a
stage show. They are incidental to the real purpose of the
enterprise, which is to extract taxes from the public for the benefit
of government employees.
Once you understand the real purpose of these government enterprises,
it becomes clear that they are not failing. Instead, they are
extremely successful!
Government schools may leave many children illiterate, but they do a
fine job of protecting the incomes of teachers, teachers’ aides, school
psychologists, and education bureaucrats. In fact, the more the
schools fail to educate children, the more tax money they get!
Similarly, mining inspectors may fail to protect miners from dangerous
conditions, but they always get their paychecks. In addition,
when miners die and there is a large outcry, the inspectors’ budgets
are increased!
We seem to have the delusion that government enterprises operate in the
same manner as private businesses, which make money by doing a good job
of serving their customers, but they do not. Since government
operates on money that is taken from taxpayers by force, its incentives
are entirely different from those of private businesses, which operate
on a voluntary basis. In fact, government often gets more money
by failing to serve its “customers” – and the bigger and more
disastrous the failure the better!
So, the next time you hear someone complaining about a government
enterprise failing to do its job, you should ask that person some
questions to clarify the situation. For example, are the
employees of that government enterprise being paid on a regular
basis? Is that enterprise growing in size and in budget? If
the answers to these questions are “yes”, then you can be sure that
government enterprise is doing just fine.
(For more articles, see http://www.JeffersonReview.com)