When I was practicing law, I had a fair amount of contact with different agencies of the federal government. More often than not, my contacts with government agencies were extremely frustrating. I know there are many excellent and conscientious government employees, and I have met a few of them along the way. In most cases, however, the government employees with whom I have worked were inefficient and did not demonstrate any sense of urgency. They did not have the attitude they were being paid to serve the public. Instead, they acted like they were doing you a favor if they did their job.
I used to represent a client who had frequent dealings with an agency that is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The building that houses the Department of Agriculture is huge. I always thought I could see the curvature of the earth when I was standing at one end of the hall and looking down the hall toward the other end. I was always depressed when I walked the hallways of the Department of Agriculture and looked into the various offices I passed along the way. This was many years ago, and the size of the bureaucracy was staggering. The federal government today probably has two or three times the number of employees it had then.
On one occasion, I flew to Washington, D.C. early one morning to close a government loan for my client. Although the closing had been planned weeks in advance, all of the documents were not ready when I arrived. I sat around most of the day waiting to complete the closing. At about 4:30 in the afternoon, we needed perhaps five or ten more minutes to complete the closing. The government attorney with whom I was working announced he had to leave to catch his bus and we would have to finish the closing the next day. I pleaded for him to stay for ten more minutes, but he was gone. I had planned to return to Atlanta that evening, but instead I went shopping for a toothbrush, a razor, and some clean underwear. I found a hotel room and called my wife and told her I wouldn’t be home until the next day. She was not surprised because she knew why I had gone to Washington.
Today, I am frequently reminded of my personal experiences with the federal government when I am reading the newspaper. On almost any given day, I can find an article about government waste or inefficiency or about a government program that is in disarray. Several days ago, I read several articles on the same day describing different government programs that were experiencing problems. The individual articles are noteworthy only because they describe typical problems with government programs.
Several of the articles discussed the recently completed “Cash for Clunkers” program, which the Obama Administration and the Democrats in Congress are hailing as an example of a highly successful government program. A successful government program is one that transfers money from one group of citizens to another group, which is exactly what the “Cash for Clunkers” program did. The program transferred money from people who pay taxes to people who used taxpayer-funded subsidies to help them purchase a new car.
The “Cash for Clunkers” program was designed to promote the automobile industry and at the same time to replace old gas-guzzling cars with fuel-efficient cars. One article about the program described the problems the automobile dealers were experiencing in getting paid the money promised to them by the government. The article described the amount of paperwork involved in submitting a claim to the government and the government’s failure to process the claims on a timely basis. Another article pointed out that some trucks and sport-utility vehicles getting less than 20 miles per gallon were being purchased with government subsidies. Still another article said the supply of inexpensive cars available to poor people who needed transportation to get to work was being substantially reduced by the program’s requirement that the automobile dealers destroy the old cars being traded in for new cars. Finally, an editorial compared the “Cash for Clunkers” program with the government’s efforts several years ago to encourage people to buy houses they couldn’t afford. The editorial speculated the program was inducing many people to buy cars they couldn’t afford.
On the same day, I read another article about a non-profit housing agency in Nebraska that was expecting to receive a share of $5 billion in federal stimulus money to seal windows and install insulation to make the homes of low-income people more energy efficient. The work was expected to begin months ago, but no windows have been sealed and no insulation has been installed. The article said the Nebraska non-profit agency is one of many nationwide who are sitting on millions of dollars of stimulus money they cannot spend because of arcane federal rules governing how much workers should be paid for making energy-saving home improvements. According to the article, the non-profit agencies “blame months of mixed signals sent by federal officials.” According to one program manager, “It seems like it’s just been one roadblock after another.” The article quoted David Bradley, executive director of the National Community Action Foundation, who said the “vast majority” of states aren’t spending the money allocated to them. It also quoted an official from the U.S. Department of Energy who acknowledged there has been confusion “across the board.”
I read another article on the same day published by The New York Times regarding the Energy Department’s failure to use the same energy efficiency techniques it advocates for others. According to the article, “The Energy Department strives to be a leader in championing energy efficiency. Its Web site lists energy-saving tips, while Secretary Steven Chu calls conservation one of the department’s most important goals. But at many of the agency’s buildings, even at national laboratories where talented scientists seek technological break-throughs to save energy, the department has failed to use one of the simplest, most effective tools available to any ordinary household—thermostats that automatically dial back the temperature when nobody is around. A recent audit found the Energy Department could save more than $11.5 million in energy costs by properly employing these ‘setback’ controls to adjust the heat and air conditioning at night and on weekends.”
Some things never change. The federal government has been out of control for years, and it continues to be out of control. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal government now has more than 1.8 million civilian employees, excluding the U.S. Post Office and the military. The federal government is the nation’s largest employer. The number of federal government employees is growing at a time when the number of jobs in the private sector is shrinking. As the government grows, it becomes increasingly inefficient.
In recent months, the federal government has acquired control of financial institutions, insurance companies, and automobile manufacturers because, in the government’s opinion, these businesses were “too big to fail.” As I see it, the federal government is too big to succeed.
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