Longtime readers of my site know I’m a fan of Newt Gingrich – for the most part. Sometimes I quibble with his ideas based on my belief that they’re overly based on Federal involvement in issues better left to inferior jurisdictions (e.g. the states and local government) but today he wrote a winner. I’ll let the column speak for itself.
Where Newt’s contention leads me is to a very simple question: why are government jobs safe? There’s two ways to answer this.
The first is to notice that when government addresses a problem, somehow it creates two others. If things were otherwise, that agency or bureau would have no more reason to exist. Through experience we’ve found it’s terribly difficult to kill off a government program – after all, we still pay a telephone tax meant to help pay for the Spanish-American War over a century ago!
And it’s tough to counter a government employee lobby – of all people, Newt should know this because Big Labor took his “wither on the vine” comment out of context and scared seasoned citizens into thinking he was going to cut out Medicare.
Secondly, let’s look at a part of President Obama’s stimulus program – the part about building infrastructure. Okay, we’re building a new bridge. But when that’s done, where do the workers go to next if the economy is still ailing? Do we have to create another project for them to shift to once the first one is complete? Again, this has the potential of being self-perpetuating.
I also see this as the weakness of a common local practice – seeking grants for operational purposes.
Last week I noted in my account of Sheriff Lewis’s appearance at our Republican Club meeting that the county received an $89,000 grant from the federal government to hire personnel. In fact, one thing I didn’t mention in my retelling of the events is that the Sheriff’s Department has an employee who spends much of his time seeking to acquire federal and state grants for various purposes.
In many respects, state and federal grant money is like crack to local administrators. They become hooked on the allure of “free” money to purchase items or hire additional personnel; however, there always seems to be strings attached and at the very least there’s the question of who pays to maintain the personnel or buy the next item if the grant money runs out or the program goes away. (Obviously this is another reason why federal programs never die because the states and counties would scream bloody murder if they couldn’t feed their addiction.)
Here lies the reason why what Newt said is so true. It would take bold, decisive action to sweep away the layers of Fedzilla bureaucracy – not just from a politician who isn’t concerned about re-election but from voters who would have to rededicate themselves every election hence to not vote for candidates who sing that siren song of having government do things for you.
If there is one thing in common about the legacy of both Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, it is that they made valiant attempts to beat back the marauding beast that is the federal government but unfortunately it was just too strong to be held off for long.
This is why I contend lasting change would require the support of at least two generations, and these generations need to persevere and not settle for that safe government job.
