We Get What We Pay For.



We Get What We Pay For.  Why have we, the USA, been saddled with so many arbitrary, capricious, and simply wrong-headed laws over the last couple of decades….and increasingly so?  The blame lies at the feet of all three branches of our government, but for this post, I will give the Judiciary a pass and dump on the Executive and the Legislative.

I think there is a large misconception with the public that makes them believe that the laws and regulations that they encounter in their everyday lives are actually passed by Congress.  It is true that a good many of them are; but a good many of them are not.  Rather than legislating an actual law or regulation, Congress has given the authority to do so to the Executive branch and their appointees.  This trend, that I will refer to as “legislating on the slide”, has been more prominent over the last few years (predating Obama) and shows no sign of letting up.  It is best illustrated by huge boondoggles such as farm bills, tax reform, Obamacare, and (if passed) immigration reform.  I see two ready explanations for this occurrence.  First, the fact is that actual legislation must be written and put in hard copy; it should be read, debated, and understood and that requires a colossal amount of work.  It is far easier to limit that effort to grand ideas, far reaching directives, hypocritical language, and to forgetting that every government benefit requires, at some point, an application process and benefit processing.   This is why many times a Senator or Representative has a clearly different interpretation of a law (after passage) than that of a Department Secretary or Administrator.  Mr. Congressman…If that is the way you want it, put it in the bill in plain language; do not pass the buck to the Secretary or Administrator.  Is it any wonder that each Administration finds new and creative ways to weave their agendas into our laws and federal programs?  The fact is that Congress gives them the openings and they take advantage of them.  The best illustration of this practice is Ms. Pelosi’s remarks that we should pass Obamacare to find out what is in it; ‘Nuff said; those chickens are just now beginning to find their way home.  Secondly, the plain and simple truth is that Congress and their staffs, as bright and intelligent as they are (and many of them are), and as great as their resources are, simply are not competent to legislate in the areas they address.  They refuse to do the heavy lifting that requires public hearings and actually interfacing with the affected citizens.  They refuse to limit themselves to the budgetary limits that each of us have to do on a monthly basis. Their glowing rhetoric notwithstanding, they (each and every one of them) still spend money like it grows on trees.  And finally, and most important, they DO NOT utilize the greatest resource available to them when trying to write law and regulation; that being the legions of career government employees who deal with these programs on a daily basis.  I am talking about the ones who stand at counters and desks and fill out the forms; the ones who have to explain why eligibility and compliance rules are so arbitrary; and the ones who pay those who clearly don’t need it and bypass many of those who just as clearly do need some help.  Every time a Senate or House Committee or Sub-Committee turns its membership over, the incoming personnel feel the need to “reinvent the wheel”.  They feel empowered with such an abundance of wisdom that all that went before them is irrelevant; they have arrived with a better way.  Thus our government is locked in the cycle of repeating the same errors in judgment over and over through the years.  The escape accountability for this because we, the voters, have such short memories and the time elapsed between the reinventions allows us to forget.  Is it any wonder that our government is so inefficient and riddled with waste and duplicity? 

Government employees have a bad reputation; an undeserved stereotype.  When we talk about government employees, it is essential that we separate political appointees from career employees.  Political appointees have the power; career employees do the grunt work.  Political appointees take all the credit for the good; career employees take all the blame for bad policy (crap runs downhill).  Political appointees come and go for a period of months or a handful of years; career employees work for 30 years or more and watch Presidents, Senators, and Representatives come and go like yesterday’s news.  Like all professions, there are good career employees and there are bad ones; but the overwhelming percentage are hard working folks just like you and me that are busting their humps every week to earn their paycheck and do the best they can with what they have to work with.  These people, the ones who know what actually works and doesn’t work because they have seen it proven in the real world, should be utilized when our Congress tries to write new laws.  Rather than insert language that passes “administrative and discretionary authority” to the Secretary or some other political appointee, Congress needs to knuckle down, do their due diligence, listen to people who actually know what they are talking about based on life experience, and…perhaps most importantly…be a damn sight more efficient with their language and regulations.  The hard truth is that sometimes…the less government, the better.  When viewing some of the nonsense that Congress passes and the President signs, one has to believe that they are simply trying to justify their existence by signing something…anything.

I have been very critical of the Obama administration and what I perceive to be its abuse of executive power.  But as low as my esteem is for this Administration and this President, I think a greater portion of blame must go to those who have sat in Congress over the last couple of decades and forsaken their responsibilities to promulgate good law.  They took the easy way out; they chose to “legislate on the slide”.