MUTH’S TRUTHS

It’s often suggested that we need to run government like a business. But such a notion isn’t just a pipe dream; it’s a crack-pipe dream.

The problem is that government is run by paper-pushing, turf-defending, civil service-protected union bureaucrats who simply don’t think or act like businessmen. To a businessman supply and demand means that when supply is low and demand is high it’s time to expand the business. But supply and demand from a bureaucrat’s standpoint is something else entirely. They demand more money for their programs regardless of want or need and expect taxpayers to supply the funding for it.

Here’s an example to demonstrate the point. My neighborhood elementary school in Carson City offers an after-school program administered by the Parks & Recreation Department of supervised activities for kids whose parents work in the afternoon. Because I home-school my kids, I send them to this after-school program to get some “socialization” time.

Parents pay $33 a week for this service; however, if the program isn’t open on a given day of a given week because of a holiday, parents still have to pay the full weekly fee. There’s no credit for the day the government doesn’t provide any service and the workers don’t work. Which is kinda like the government paying farmers NOT to grow crops. And that’s – what’s the word I’m looking for here? – oh yeah, stupid.

In addition, if parents don’t pay for a given week due to their child being sick or out on vacation, the kid gets kicked out of the program and his or her slot is given to another kid on the waiting list, which brings up another contrast between government and business.

At the after-school site where my youngest daughter goes the waiting list to get in is 26 kids long. Now in the real world a waiting list like that means demand is high and supply is low. And that, to a businessman, means a chance to collect an extra $858 a week in fees. But that’s not how the bureaucrat thinks, which is why you’ll never be able to run government like a business.

The businessman sees the waiting list as an opportunity; the bureaucrat sees it as a problem. So rather than find a way to provide service to the 26 kids on the waiting list, the bureaucrat looks for a way to kick kids out of the existing program to make room for those on the waiting list. And that means kicking kids out of the program if a parent doesn’t pay for a week when their kid is sick or on vacation.

Of course, this doesn’t fix the waiting list problem. It just means the kid who is tossed out now goes on the waiting list which is still 26 kids long. So all the bureaucrat has done is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. But in the world of government that bureaucrat is now considered a genius and worthy of becoming a supervisor.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Posted on October 16th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: National