...on being too big to succeed

"Obama's philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America--confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality. Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable." -Peggy Noonan

It's common knowledge, and no doubt in school text books by now, that the government's inept response to hurricane Katrina was Bush's fault. But now, just a few years later, the coast of Louisiana is being hammered again, this time with oil spilling from an undersea well. Thank goodness we've got a competent, compassionate president at the wheel this time around, right? Because that's all we need. Right? The problem last time was the president and we fixed that problem.

And yet after 40 days oil is still spewing into the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate. Granted, not all 40 of those days were spent trying to fix the problem. In fact, the first few weeks were dedicated to distancing the current administration from BP and the spill. But with political pressure (the only kind that really counts) mounting, the President is finally addressing the spill and--if it doesn't interfere too much with his upcoming second vacation since the oil spill--will actually go visit the coast of Louisiana and inspect the damage. Unfortunately, the government which Mr. Obama heads is not capable of fixing the problem--they'll have to continue to rely on BP for that.

But rather than dwell on President Obama's inexplicably poor handling of this environmental disaster (which has been nothing if not on par with Bush's handling of Katrina) let's focus on the true lesson here: The government can't take care of us. And the bigger the government get's the less capable it becomes of taking care of anything or anybody.

Those who favor big government (and big taxes to pay for it) do so because they believe that the government can and will take care of them fairly and effectively. But that premise is misguided and incorrect on two levels. First, the government can't physically do the job. The bigger and more bureaucratic it gets, the more layers you place in the already inefficient bureaucracy, the harder it falls. Today, 40 days into an environmental catastrophe, the U.S. government will watch from the side lines as a London-based oil company attempts to plug the underwater oil leak with tires and golf balls. Um...wow..need I say more?

Second, the government only acts in the best interest of its citizens when the best interest of its citizens aligns with the political interests of those in the government. In other words, until we the people get righteously pissed-off and threaten their political futures, politicians are going to continue serving the interests of the special interest groups who give them money.

This isn't a partisan rant. To the contrary, it's a rant against all those who believe that governmental incompetence and gross inefficiency are a product of party. It's a rant against big, expensive, inefficient and increasingly ineffective government. And it's a rant against anybody who believes that it's a good idea to spend trillions of dollars that we don't have to put the government--the one that's on board with the plan to pour golf balls and old tires onto an 40 day old, underwater oil leak because that's the best plan they've got--in charge of health care, the environment, banking, business, etc.