Recently Glenn Beck wrote on his chalkboard that government does not create jobs. I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Beck. I can name four quick government programs that produced more jobs than we can count.
1. TVA. The Tennessee Valley Authority...This program provided electricty to rural homes throughout the Southeast and laid the groundwork for an industrial base that is still thriving.
2. The Interstate Highway System...Need I elaborate?
3. NASA...NASA was not created for the purpose of sparking a dozen or so new industries but it did just that. From cordless power tools to water filtration systems to the smoke detector to cordless power tools, NASA laid the groundwork for a host of new industries.
4. DARPA/Internet...Need I elaborate?
In each of these examples, we are talking about relatively small amounts of money that spun off entire industries. This is especially true of NASA and the Internet. These programs represent our nation at its best.
Also in each of these programs, the government sent its funds to engineers to perform specific tasks. It's brutally simple. The environmentalists, the social workers and the silly ass academics were excluded from funding. We rewarded people who worked vs. people who obstruct work.
I wish we had high speed rails to compete against the airlines. I wish for a lot of things. But I don't necessarily advocate for my wish list because we live in an era of incompetence and rampant corruption. Compare the costs of laying a cross continental highway system vs. Boston's Big Dig. The Big Dig was laden with excessive costs overruns and they were met with a collective shrug. It's sad that we just accept corruption and incompetence as part of the game. See New Orleans for exhibit B.
The Department of Energy never fulfilled its stated mission. Why? Overpoliticalization? A pork barrel mentality? Poor administration? The rise of environmentalists and silly bastards our fathers and grandfathers would have laughed at? I don't know.
We can add HUD and Department of Education to a longer list of programs that drained our resourcs but have little to show for results. I don't know if TVA or our highways could be built today and if they could, I don't know if we could control costs. It is hard to seperate fiscal recklessness from systemic corruption. But it is essential that we start to do so.
We rarely examine why some government programs succeed beyond their stated mission and some of them are forever trust fund babies. It might serve us well to look at these things. This goes beyond administration or political party or coalition. Should we more closely scrutinize these issues?
Nah...Just send us a check.
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