The
one thing I know for certain that I learned from my thirty years in government
service was the tendency of our government to reinvent the wheel. With a
new President every four to eight years, new House members every two years, and
new Senators every six years, there is ample opportunity for new players to enter the legislative stage
with unique and bold (at least in their
own minds) plans to create a shining city on the hill. There is just something about being elected
to public office that assuages the ego to the point where all reverence for
what has gone on before is lost. The
future begins the day they take
office. Further adding fuel to this fire
is the fact that both the Senate and House routinely rotate Committee
memberships; thus systematically removing any institutional knowledge gained
from past legislative successes and failures.
Nowhere in government is this more obvious than in the formulation of
the national Farm Bill.
A
Farm Bill typically runs from four to six years. Its overall purpose is to insure a reliable supply
of food for our nation and the survival of our agricultural sector. It also addresses many federal food and
nutrition programs, international trade issues, and a multitude of conservation
concerns. One would hope that a new farm
bill would consistently and cogently build upon its predecessor with some type
of logic and reason. Unfortunately, that
is often not the case. Many times, a
specific program that has failed in prior farm bills is resurrected in a new
farm bill. The inexplicable explanation
for this phenomenon is a lack of historical research by current congressional
members, the arrogance of placing excessive faith in one’s own judgment, and
the ever-evolving tragedy of government waste and corruption. Repeatedly over the last several decades,
agricultural has seen a failed program from years past re-introduced in a
shamelessly similar fashion with the simple placement of a new acronym to
identify it. Rather than having a
continuous bolt of cloth with a uniform pattern and texture, we are stuck with
a patchwork quilt of differing and redundant shapes, sizes, and colors. What is
they say about failing to learn from history’s mistakes and being condemned to
repeat them?
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This
pattern of stubbornly clinging to sweeping change as opposed to the
hard-earned, incremental improvements in program administration that can be earned
by monitoring and tweaking ongoing programs is one of the glaring weaknesses in
our form of government. There is an
atrocious lack of accountability in the government. The Peter Principle that provides for each
employee to rise to the level of their incompetence has found a haven in the
civil service system. The bitter
partisan divide that has enveloped our government and our nation has fed this
madness by basically mandating that when one Party accedes to majority status
in place of its opponent; it is beholden upon that Party’s leaders to disregard
any prior initiative put forth by their predecessors, even when it has obvious merit. Two prime examples are the Republican’s
obsession with the repeal of Obamacare and the Democrat’s inexplicable refusal
to spend one red cent on any form of southern border physical barrier. Obamacare
and The Wall are anathema to the
opposing parties.
There
will be times when a federal program has run its course. For whatever reason, the need that spurred
the creation of the program has been met or our culture has evolved to a point
where the need no longer exists. There
will also be rare occasions when a program is such an epic boondoogle that
there is no denying it’s time to end it.
Both of these instances are all too rare, but they do occur. A federal program is typically impossible to
eliminate once it comes online. THIS IS WHY our government should be
very thoughtful and deliberate when creating a new federal program. It is not very likely to go away for
decades…even generations. The need for
the program must be real, the
government must be uniquely situated
to address the need, and there should be no
other feasible alternative to solve the problem. Fundamental questions should be asked. Is this program worthy of spending federal
tax dollars to finance it? Is this a
problem best solved by the individual states or counties? Can society better address this issue through
charitable or community organizations?
What we are discussing with this blog is a situation where the need for
a federal program is ongoing and the program is clearly no longer meeting its
targeted purpose.
Do
you have any idea of the expense involved in discontinuing one government
program designed to address a specific issue and then replacing it with a new and improved government program to address
the same issue? All the old forms must be disposed of; they
cannot be altered or recycled in any meaningful way. These now-obsolete forms are in printer’s
storerooms, government warehouse inventories, stacked on government office
shelves, and at customer counters all across our great nation. The new ones must be produced (ever wonder where the Rain Forests are
disappearing to?). This, of course,
involves new and improved designs,
innovative and more definitive (read:
complex) language, and the addition of recently mandated disclaimers and
notes. All of the handbooks and manuals
that instruct government employees on how to deliver the marvelous new program must be put in place. This requires obsolescing the prior program
handbooks and manuals and then issuing the new ones (once again, there go the trees!).
Naturally, no government document of any import can be distributed
without first undergoing a public review and comment period; which typically
requires a few months at a minimum.
Heaven forbid that we overlook any of those essential stakeholders; no matter how microscopic their stake may be. And in case you are wondering about the tree
comments…no, the government did not go paperless with the advent of ADP in the
mid 80’s. The demand for federal paper
is alive and well.
It
is instructive to mention at this point the significance of the words may and shall. When Congress passes
legislation and the President signs it into law, this is not the end of the
road. The actual piece of legislation
must now be transformed into law.
Regulations must now be written using the legislation as a basis. This requires interpretation. If the legislation is specific and clear,
that interpretation is pretty simple. On
the other hand, if a bitterly divided political body such as our government
produces a product from the votes of 100 Senators and 435 House members, who
along with the President have passed something in order to find out what is in it, then that interpretation
becomes problematic. A Congressional “shall” signifies an absolute; a
definitive declaration that this will be
done. On the other hand, a
Congressional “may” signifies that some discretion is built into the action
or requirement. The limits and bounds of
that discretion are oftentimes in the hands of the interpreters and therein
lies the potential disconnect between Congressional intent and the actual impact
of a government program. If Congress
produces a broad outline of a program with numerous “mays” instead of a clearly-defined plan with the frequent use of “shall”; then an Administration, through
its politically-appointed Secretaries and Agency Heads will take the program in
the direction they deem desirable. Thus
the usurpation of Congressional power by the Executive branch thrives and continues. By the time the Judicial branch of our
government catches up with the issue and deems that the Executive branch has
misinterpreted the Legislative branch intent, it is far too late to change the
direction of the program that has been in place for years. In this fashion, the old saying about the devil
being in the details is once again aptly proven correct. If an Administration is boldly idealistic and
a Congress is irresponsibly vague, the Executive branch can literally change
the direction of legislation 180 degrees.
So,
back to making the sausage... With the new instructions in place, we now have
to train the federal personnel on how to read the directives. That requires national training, state
training, local training, and the most important training of all…training the clients. May the Good Lord grant them the wisdom and
patience to comprehend this new and incredible program that is replacing the
one that has already taken a good portion of their lifetime to adequately
understand. And most critical of all, in
this new and marvelous age of technology, the required computer software must
be developed, tested, delivered, trained upon, put in place, and supported in
order to facilitate the ultimate unveiling of the world-changing event. Oh, and by the way… this last step must occur
in an environment where the delivery system is woefully inadequate and the
demands are incredibly unrealistic.
I
do believe that a sober analysis of our government’s history will show that it
functions best when it operates in an incremental fashion; making transparent
and judicious adjustments to ongoing programs.
It is undeniable that every time a government program is created (or duplicated), that action either exacerbates
or creates the potential for feeding the explosion in the size of our government. All policy disagreements aside, no person in
their right mind can dispute the fact that our government has become far too
large and that its burgeoning weight has led to gross inefficiency and ineffectiveness. It has largely created both the inability to
adequately monitor the administration of government programs and the abject surrender
to responsibly budget the cost of said programs.
One
more quick observation… You would think that Congress would be anxious to get
feedback from career civil servants who have spent decades administering
specific federal programs. You would
think that this wealth of knowledge and experience gleaned from prior efforts
would be invaluable to planning for the future.
You would think that past mistakes could be avoided and obvious
corrections could be included in future federal programs. You would be wrong. Congress has very little regard for the army
of civil servants that administers the plethora of programs it promulgates. It would rather rely on its platoons of yuppies
fresh out of college and full of their Alice
in Wonderland attitudes about how government can best decide how YOU should live your life.
As
a respected friend once told me and as I have quoted before, sometimes the
train has to wreck in order to fix the train.
This is occurring now in our nation’s health care industry. If we can somehow manage to refrain from a
total repeal of Obamacare, from ending private health plans and instituting
Medicare For All, or from having some brilliant politician come up with a be all and end all heath care plan that will
solve everyone’s problems…we just might continue to make some of the
incremental and substantive improvements to our health care industry that will help
to preserve its place as the envy of the civilized world.
As
I have written before, some of the most fortunate legislative accomplishments
are the efforts that fail, such as Obamacare’s full repeal. Obamacare was a flawed health care vehicle
that was three-quarters bipartisan and one-quarter partisan. It is that partisan fourth that poisoned the
water. Since the Republican’s failed
efforts to repeal Obamacare, that one-fourth of the recipe has been whittled
and altered by both Congressional and Executive Action. What could have easily been accomplished at
inception with a modicum of civility is now being accomplished through the
natural and organic processes of democracy.
And
as a testament to the everlasting toughness and resiliency of our government (which manages to persevere in spite of
itself), the deliberate and incremental improvements in our health care
industry continue as we speak. Here are
some recent developments on that front that should encourage us all to have
faith and trust in our imperfect, but durable, government.
