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Follow The Government Money

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

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.

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