The problem with top heavy organizations is that they are inherently unstable. Each year it becomes increasingly harder to add to the bloat—beyond a certain point the mess just collapses.
This is because government lives or dies based on a simple ratio. Call it “efficiency”. It is the ratio of what the government promises versus what it delivers. And oddly enough, it matters far less *what* it promises than that it delivers on those promises.
If government promises few things and delivers, it will survive and prosper. But over time the tendency is to promise more and more. At first it can grow and continue to deliver. But unless it can curtail its promises, and few can, they will, they must, outstrip the promise delivery.
And that is when the breakdown begins. Much of the breakdown is seen early on, with things such as “The Peter Principle”, and various bureaucratic Murphy’s Laws.
But then you get entire agencies of government that exist solely to perpetuate themselves, no longer performing any real service or function, though they contain an enormous machine to do so.
Other agencies have fewer and fewer people performing the “muscle”, the real work, and more people and assets devoted to “fat”. And if there is one great bureaucratic rule, it is “when asked to cut back, cut the muscle and leave the fat.” This frightens politicians who want to cut back.
An excellent example of this going on right now is the British National Health System. It has reached the point where it demands endless increases in budget, yet performs worse and worse. Now to eliminate its backlog, it has begun to create artificial rules allowing it to discriminate against smokers and the overweight, the sum total of whom, conveniently, nearly matches their backlog.
Problem solving through inefficiency.
Sooner rather than later, it will provide so little health care that people will have to leave the country to get it, or find it through illegal, back-alley private providers.
The only question is what will precipitate its collapse, and what form that collapse will take. Many people will have to unnecessarily suffer and even die before the truly obstinate believers in the NHS are overwhelmed.
So what about the US government? Well, in many parts of the government, the ratio of what is promised to what is delivered isn’t that bad—even though what is promised is improper, unconstitutional, and wasteful. But they can get away with a *lot* of that before it becomes unstable.
Absent major catastrophes. And this is an important point. When something like Katrina happens, and the “inefficiency” is exposed, the promises not delivered upon, then you will see a strong impulse for reform. But in truth, Katrina was just a small version of catastrophe.
What could be far more telling would be a major worldwide economic collapse, a terrible pandemic like Avian flu, or a major war, where there was no longer the easy resources available to support government bloat.
Ironic that such disaster might precipitate much needed reform in government, to force them to back off, and bow their collective heads after having been humbled, having paid the price for wanting to be all things to all people.
Where would you cut?
http://www.thebudgetgraph.com/poster/
Here is the federal government, slice away.
It’s not up to us to decide. That is something that will have to be worked out between the Legislatures and the Senate post-repeal. We do not have an agenda, except to get the bureaucracy under control, not only in size, but in the way they do things.
We hope to make it a part of the amendment required to repeal the 17th, but it may not be possible to require Congress, after there are 51 Legislature appointed Senators seated, to create a national Ombudsman which would take over the review of new regulations, appeals on infranctions and be charged with the responsibility to keep the bureaucrats on track.