Thursday, December 19, 2013

Don't Fear the Agencies

Some people might think that government failure is a direct consequence of the implementing agencies being big, outdated, and not designed properly.

So what is the problem with the Obamacare rollout (and presumably other policies since the description sounds more general than just the law in the spotlight)? The president has the answer:

In explaining the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, President Obama told Chris Matthews he had discovered that “we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed properly.”

An interesting discovery to make after having consigned the vast universe of American medicine, one-sixth of the U.S. economy, to the tender mercies of the agency bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service.

You'd almost think that was a Tea Party critique if you didn't know that the president's leg-tingling solution is to spend money to make those big agencies bigger, modern, and better designed.

Foolish me. I see government that is just too damn big and think it should be smaller:

Can we finally conclude that the federal government is just too damn big when the president with the ginormous brain and even bigger faith in the ability of the federal government to spend our way to societal bliss can't manage to make big government work? Or even know what big government is doing?

Nah. The government is great. We could use a little more cow bell!



It's a fever! And the only prescription is more cowbell!