Sunday, November 28, 2010

Government agencies

Government agencies as a species have a life cycle which consists of being conceived from half-baked and amorphous crises, suckling on dubious and misdirected appropriations, then being sent to forage for new missions and need of subsidy when they have either failed at their primary mission, or have outlived their usefulness. The Department of Education is a good example, but then so is the EPA, which lost all sense of perspective an good sense when “climate change” provided a convenient pretext for expanding its power. The institutions of government have been allowed too much leeway to conform their responsibilities to ideological fashions. Like aneurysms, their growth is pathogical.

Our political class and its self-important academic chorus has grown too unappreciative of the concept that sometimes institutions and enterprises have limited useful lifespans, and obsolescence cannot be ignored in the interests of favored constituencies or nostagic hubris. Just as propping up failed private enterprises such as GM and large banking interests merely subsidized inefficiency and stupid management, sticking yet-to-be-conceived taxpayers with the bill, accommodation of archaic and ossified bureaucracies deprives us of a more efficient and effective government.

Jefferson was being not only concise but also practical when he noted the boundaries of proper government; that they are instituted among men to secure the just rights of the governed. It is beyond parody that we now have government agencies that think it is their purpose to stereotype a group of people, psychoanalyze them without their input, and patronize them into feeling good about themselves

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