Government Versus The Real World

Back in 2000, when the late Harry Browne was running for president, he came up with an interesting question that he asked people. It was "What is your favorite government program?" I watched a video tape of him asking many people that question. Virtually none of them could name a government program that they liked. Very few people like government programs, yet these programs continue to endure. Why is that?

I think it is mainly because of one glaring difference in how government operates and how the real world operates. In the real world, people have ideas, they start endeavors based on these ideas and the endeavors either prosper or they do poorly, fail and disappear. In the world of government, governments have ideas; they start programs based on these ideas. If the programs prosper, which is nearly never the case, they continue. If the programs fail, the people who started them claim they were under funded or under staffed and additional resources are channeled to the failing programs to try and make them work.

A current example of just such an instance is the call by Rep. Charles Rangel to reinstate the draft. Rep. Rangel said, "There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way,". Can anyone be that dumb? Why would 'W' hesitate starting a war for fear of the draft? He was successful in evading the draft during the Vietnam War, I am sure that he would assume that he could keep his daughters out of any draft that came up. I also imagine that most if not all members of our political elite would make the same assumption. No, the war in Iraq is just another failed government program and all Rep. Rangel's proposal would do would make it easier for the political elite to throw resources, in this case the lives of American men and women, at that failed program. If Rep. Rangel is concerned about our minorities and lower income people being sacrificed in Iraq, and rightly he should be, then he should submit legislation calling for the immediate withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq and close that failed government endeavor.