Can The Government Do More? Yes - But Pray It Doesn't!

I am always confused by those who demand the government provide more services. We hear it all the time. There is a demand for more health care, more environmental protection policies and demands that the government impose stricter regulations on the banks and big corporations.

I’m not suggesting that some of those things aren’t important or even necessary; some probably are but expecting government to take care of it is like expecting ….well…there isn’t anything quite as stupid as expecting government to take care of things in an effective and efficient manner.

Honestly! When was the last time government did much of anything that could be considered truly efficient? They can’t even collect taxes, let alone spend the money they collect efficiently.

I know it’s not a popular topic. I hate taxes too but we all need to throw some cash into the pot to take care of a few common essentials like roads and highways, national defense, justice and so on. So, taxes in some form or another are a necessary evil and we elected government to take care of that for us.

It’s a simple concept really. All government is required to do is collect a specific percentage of our incomes and then use that money to provide the services to which we’ve agreed. Government, however, lives in an alternate universe and they have turned that simple concept into a bizarre, overly complex and expensive process that is both inequitable and expensive.

In the United States, for example, government spends approximately $1.5 trillion…..let me repeat that for you in case you missed it the first time….$1.5 trillion collecting taxes. In Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency has almost as many employees as the Canadian armed forces. How is that possible?

It happens because bureaucracies are the same the world over. In Canada, a gun registry was budgeted to cost $200 million. It ended up costing $2 billion making it the most expensive data base ever created. In Germany, the bureaucracy and politicians invested billions in solar and wind power but are now dismantling the entire program and purchasing much of their power from the Czech Republic at a fraction of the cost already incurred.

Billions, even trillions, of dollars are spent on bureaucratic processes and systems that do nothing other than to slow down economies, overly complicate the function of government and drive sane people into therapy.

The procurement process is just one more example. Governments spend billions on everything from office furniture to military equipment each and every year. Do they do it well I’ll let you judge. Personally I don’t believe that paying more than $100 apiece for hammers that a Defense Department audit revealed a few years back would support any claim to either efficiency or even common sense. You and I can pick one up at Home Depot for less than twenty bucks. Maybe we should be doing procurement for the government,

Despite the incredible amount of bureaucratic process that goes into government procurement, somehow we still end up seeing an incredible amount of over-spending for things that most of us could pick up at a box store for a fraction of the price.

Government is very good at imposing restrictions on itself to protect our interests; they just aren’t very good at operating within those restrictions as is now being discovered in the ongoing GSA scandal in the United States.  Wouldn’t we all like a job where our employer picks up the tab for a vacation in Las Vegas complete with hot tubs and free meals? I think it would actually be better if the government cut most of these departments and let us keep more of our income so that we could pay for our own trips rather than applying for a government job just get away now and then.

It isn’t just the incredible wastage of real cash that is bothersome though, it’s the way government works that squanders billions in daily nickel and dime activities.

I was recently told about a very senior bureaucrat who was to present an award at a ceremony. It wasn’t a big ceremony and there were no media or politicians present, nor was the public involved. It was an employee awards presentation and this particular bureaucrat was asked to make a five minute presentation speech to present one of the awards.

He earns in excess of a quarter of a million a year but was incapable of winging that speech nor was he capable of jotting a few notes down on a piece of paper as he was being driven across town to make the presentation. Apparently his personal staff wasn’t capable either. Instead, they requested that a particular department write the speech for him. 

This speech took the better part of an afternoon to craft and involved a deputy-minister, assistant deputy minister, a director general and no less than two directors. The five minute, “Congratulations, here’s your award’ speech was emailed back and forth between these executives for approximately four to five hours as they painstakingly poured over every syllable. The cost? I’m glad you asked. The deputy minister makes close to $250,000/yr, the adm makes somewhere in the area of $180,000, the director general $150,000 and the two directors each earn approximately $110,000. 

In other words, government required the services of a team of people with annual salaries totaling $800,000+ / year just to craft a brief presentation speech that you and I could have ad-libbed.

That’s how government approaches everything. If the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, government will never be able to successfully connect those two points. Instead they will form committees to discuss alternate routes between the two points, conduct feasibility studies to examine which of the alternate routes is the most environmentally friendly or has the least potential for political repercussions, call for tenders which they will subsequently ignore and then scrap the entire project because all of this took so long, the original requirement is now redundant.

Canadians are issued a social insurance number and a shiny plastic card with that number on it. My card eventually fell apart and I needed a new one. I thought it would be a simple matter of showing up at Service Canada (a somewhat outstanding oxymoron), producing some ID and then filling out a form. I was wrong.

I needed my birth certificate but I no longer had my birth certificate because it was printed on flimsy paper and had become so worn out, it simply decayed. Government, for reasons known only to itself won’t permit you to plasticize your paper birth certificate. So, I dutifully drove to Toronto, prepared to produce all kinds of ID to get a new birth certificate. I didn’t need ID, I merely had to fill out the form, pay a fee and we were done. Three days later, my birth certificate arrived by mail.

Now understand what happened here. I was originally applying for a new SIN card, arguably the most important document a Canadian has. The federal government would not accept any government issued photo ID to verify who I was. I was required to produce my birth certificate (remember, I was already in their data base). I didn’t need photo ID to replace my birth certificate which means that the federal government relied on a document any idiot can obtain without any verification of who they are.

Only a bureaucracy could be that abjectly stupid.

There are many good and professional people who work for governments. They do the very best they can but they are constrained by a system and process so antiquated and byzantine that I’m surprised more of them haven’t attempted suicide out of frustration.

I’ve brought this up because so many continue to pressure, petition and lobby the government for more services. Why? Were they not here for the last billion dollar boondoggle? Are they masochists who enjoy seeing things done in the most ineffective manner possible or are they so naïve that they cling to faint hope like a fat kid clings to a chocolate bar. Government doesn’t make our lives easier or better. It interferes and undermines what otherwise would be a pretty good lifestyle. 

Do we never learn? Just how many $100 hammers can we afford?

Personally, I think the time has come to reduce government to as small a size as possible. They clearly have too much time on their hands and the world is full of real problems looking for real and expeditious solutions. We don’t have the time or the money anymore to wait for politicians and bureaucrats to figure out the worst way of accomplishing something,

We’re better off muddling along on our own for most things. For those who think government should handle everything remember this simple truism.  

The less government touches, the less they can screw up!

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