Most government programs start out with lofty goals. When we look at how things have gone downhill, the question, “What happened?” is asked with varying degrees of anguish. There’s an answer as to why it’s hard to fix government entities.
To understand the larger problem, look at one of the lowest levels of government, a local school board. Many get on school boards with the idea that they can make things better by improving education or reducing costs. Seemingly concerned citizens are lauded for “taking their time to serve the public”. It is widely believed that “citizen participation in government makes things better”.
In as little as a few months, many of these well-meaning citizens are quieted. They have discovered the Iron Law of School Boards: If they vote for the Superintendent’s budgets, every so often the Superintendent will have one of the principals hire a friend or relative of that school board member.
Each young teacher so hired will live fifty or sixty years after they start. In their remaining lifetime, five or six million dollars may be transferred from the taxpayers to that newly hired teacher. That’s why it’s hard to fix government entities.
School board members who have made that deal with the devil are “locked in”. They can never again complain meaningfully about excessive costs. It is soon made very clear to them that other people want to have money taken from taxpayers and given to them. The owner of a construction company, an architect, and a union steward may approach the board member.
“You got a job for your relative. Now, you have to help us. We don’t have any work scheduled for the summer after next. We, and our employees, need work. We want you to make a motion to hire an architect draw up plans for necessary remodeling.”
The board member may reply, once: “But we don’t need any more building improvements.”
He will hear, “We didn’t need your daughter/son/nephew,niece hired to be a third grade Guidance Counselor, either.”
Soon, the remodeling is under way. “Taxes only went up a little.”
So, problems with public education get worst, instead of better. Similarly, every system only gets worse. All because people feel it’s all right to take money from their neighbors as long as it only costs each neighbor “a little bit”.
But, at the end of the day, transferring five million dollars from a better teachers who were not hired (each teaching job has as many as a thousand applicants) to ne’er-do-well relatives has a cost that thousands of helpless students will pay.
Few care about illicit money transfers, especially when each person only loses “a little bit”. That’s why it’s hard to fix government entities.
