Federal
government spending problems are based entirely on hubris in government. In the
US, our massive entitlement spending and huge regulatory structure is based on
the idea that government experts can make decisions for people better than people
can make decisions for themselves.
The
morality of the government “taking care” of everyone is questionable. It’s a given that some people are mentally
unable to make their own decisions, it’s appropriate that a responsible person
or institution be appointed by a local court to take care of them. It’s not appropriate for a federal government
bureaucracy to decide whole classes of people are unable to take care of
themselves. It’s even worse for the
federal government to offer cash rewards if you give up taking care of yourself
and let them take care of you instead.
When the federal government is taking care of you, you have to do what
they tell you to do. That includes
voting for the people who take care of you, or they will stop doing it.
The
faith of liberals in the purity of federal government workers’ motives has
always astonished and amused me in its total naivete. The people from the government will have the
best of motives, while the evil private sector workers will not, according to
liberals. These judgements are never
connected with the career paths of actual people who move between government
and private sector jobs through the “revolving door” everyone complains about. It also seems to be some miracle, a weird kind
of transubstantiation, that people stop being people and become selfless saints
once they start working for the government.
Computers
have lead the government knows best crowd to argue that the government can use
computers to collect all the information they need to run things, including
large complex things like whole sectors of the economy. Voters should notice that the government does
not do computers very well. The Obamacare roll out is just one in a long line
of technology flops. The Office of Personnel Management got hacked for 20
million personnel records because they did not have up to date security.
Background checks for military, FBI and CIA personnel were stolen including
finger print records.
If
you're old enough to remember the $600 toilet seats the Pentagon was buying in the
1980's, you should notice that the problem was government using obsolete
computer technology. The printers used to print parts lists could not print very
wide reports. So the reports never had a part description and a price on the
same page.
We need to cut government spending. We need to notice
that government does not have the competence to run the things it’s supposed to
be doing right now. There is no way the federal government can take on anything
more. We need to stop the idiots who
think government should do more. It’s
clear from the results that the federal government can’t do any more.