Dan McLaughlin

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To Home Page Latest Newsletter Column Archives Click to get these columns for your local paper	Post Comments Below © 2007 Daniel J. McLaughlin Who Benefits From Failure When ordinary people in business fail, they lose money and go out of business, or they get fired. Though it is not good for the individual or business involved, it actually makes way for more productive organizations to succeed and to give better service to the public. In that sense, the failure can lead to positive results. When government programs don’t get results, it is always blamed on the lack of funding or on someone else’s problems. Government and private failures have opposite results. Failure in government is often quite good for those involved because it usually means more funding and enhanced power for the well connected. It is, however, bad for service to the public and detrimental to improvement in society. The fact that the many trillions of dollars spent on the war on poverty or the war on drugs has not made a dent on poverty or drug usage is not counted as a failure of the programs. It is seen as an indication that we need to throw more trillions at the problems. The assumption is that, if a program is deemed good by the all knowing politicians, every dollar swallowed up by the program goes to a “good” purpose, and is, therefore, justified. The Senate and the House Of Representatives are currently considering two nearly identical bills that would establish a “Public Service Academy”, a 100%, unabashedly nationalized education system, completely under the control of powerful national politicians. The bills state the following as for the basis for creation of a major new federal bureaucracy: 1) government failed in responding to Hurricane Katrina, in spite of a massive bureaucracy already in place, 2) the government education system has failed to provide enough educated students qualified to fill the bulging ranks of government servants, in spite of mounting education spending, 3) the unbearable costs of college education, caused by government imposition in higher education, puts a heavy burden on new government employees, and 4) government agents can’t speak Spanish to illegal aliens entering the country. I am sure that the list of failures they could list would have been much longer if they just gave it a little more thought. Under the government way of thinking, these additional failures would provide even more justification for spending lots of money. The newly created educational institution would be operated under the auspices of the Department Of Homeland Security, presumably because the government has also failed to provide homeland security, in spite of decades of growing intrusiveness and profligate spending. That the DOHS educates our future government officials should be a scary thought for anyone with a memory or knowledge of history. Under the act, the number of students educated through the program would be twice the number of electoral college votes, 2 times 538, or 1076, plus 25 nominated by the executive branch. If my math is correct, that equals 1,101 students. Funding is expected to be 80% public funds and 20% private funds (gifts from beneficent, “disinterested” third parties). The taxpayer burden that is being requested is $168,000,000 per year. With the private funds, the total spending on the program would thus be $205,000,000 per year. A little additional math reveals that the anticipated cost of educating these 1101 students is in the area of $186,000 per student per year. A typical private liberal arts college of about 1500 students has a budget of about $50 million per year, or about $33,000 per student. There will obviously be lots of excess cash sloshing about, a pretty nice haul for someone in a position to use it. For perspective, that program will use up real resources, taxpayers and private, of about 1.2 BILLION dollars over six years to train 1101 students a year how to more effectively sap the life out of our country. Maybe I am not being patriotic, but to me, it seems like two hundred thousand dollars per year is a pretty high price to pay to give a border guard lessons in Spanish and intercultural etiquette. I don’t mean to pick on Senator Clinton or Congressman Moran and their accomplices for introducing such irresponsible bills. Nearly every bill that is passed in either house indicates total failure by our elected officials to respect the taxpayers they are purportedly representing. It is time that we, as citizens, start to fire our elected officials who plunder their country, forsake their oath to support the constitution, and continually make the people pay for failure in government
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Daniel Mclaughlin Copyright © 2006 [Daniel McLaughlin]. All rights reserved. Revised: 01/06/08

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Who Benefits From Failure

When ordinary people in business fail, they lose money and go out of business, or they get fired. Though it is not good for the individual or business involved, it actually makes way for more productive organizations to succeed and to give better service to the public. In that sense, the failure can lead to positive results.

When government programs don’t get results, it is always blamed on the lack of funding or on someone else’s problems. Government and private failures have opposite results. Failure in government is often quite good for those involved because it usually means more funding and enhanced power for the well connected. It is, however, bad for service to the public and detrimental to improvement in society.

The fact that the many trillions of dollars spent on the war on poverty or the war on drugs has not made a dent on poverty or drug usage is not counted as a failure of the programs. It is seen as an indication that we need to throw more trillions at the problems. The assumption is that, if a program is deemed good by the all knowing politicians, every dollar swallowed up by the program goes to a “good” purpose, and is, therefore, justified.

The Senate and the House Of Representatives are currently considering two nearly identical bills that would establish a “Public Service Academy”, a 100%, unabashedly nationalized education system, completely under the control of powerful national politicians. The bills state the following as for the basis for creation of a major new federal bureaucracy: 1) government failed in responding to Hurricane Katrina, in spite of a massive bureaucracy already in place, 2) the government education system has failed to provide enough educated students qualified to fill the bulging ranks of government servants, in spite of mounting education spending, 3) the unbearable costs of college education, caused by government imposition in higher education, puts a heavy burden on new government employees, and 4) government agents can’t speak Spanish to illegal aliens entering the country. I am sure that the list of failures they could list would have been much longer if they just gave it a little more thought. Under the government way of thinking, these additional failures would provide even more justification for spending lots of money.

The newly created educational institution would be operated under the auspices of the Department Of Homeland Security, presumably because the government has also failed to provide homeland security, in spite of decades of growing intrusiveness and profligate spending. That the DOHS educates our future government officials should be a scary thought for anyone with a memory or knowledge of history.

Under the act, the number of students educated through the program would be twice the number of electoral college votes, 2 times 538, or 1076, plus 25 nominated by the executive branch. If my math is correct, that equals 1,101 students. Funding is expected to be 80% public funds and 20% private funds (gifts from beneficent, “disinterested” third parties). The taxpayer burden that is being requested is $168,000,000 per year. With the private funds, the total spending on the program would thus be $205,000,000 per year. A little additional math reveals that the anticipated cost of educating these 1101 students is in the area of $186,000 per student per year. A typical private liberal arts college of about 1500 students has a budget of about $50 million per year, or about $33,000 per student. There will obviously be lots of excess cash sloshing about, a pretty nice haul for someone in a position to use it.

For perspective, that program will use up real resources, taxpayers and private, of about 1.2 BILLION dollars over six years to train 1101 students a year how to more effectively sap the life out of our country. Maybe I am not being patriotic, but to me, it seems like two hundred thousand dollars per year is a pretty high price to pay to give a border guard lessons in Spanish and intercultural etiquette.

I don’t mean to pick on Senator Clinton or Congressman Moran and their accomplices for introducing such irresponsible bills. Nearly every bill that is passed in either house indicates total failure by our elected officials to respect the taxpayers they are purportedly representing. It is time that we, as citizens, start to fire our elected officials who plunder their country, forsake their oath to support the constitution, and continually make the people pay for failure in government

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