Squirrels and Capybaras

There is a very prevalent myth that the government is not efficient or functions well. I do not believe this is true. Well, I didn’t under normal circumstances. Under fascism, it is dysfunctional. Today, I’m talking about the before times and specifically administration and operations not responders. Since that asshole Reagan said “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” or whatever it was. I am not looking it up to see if it is actually from him or just attributed to him. I believe the dysfunction is solely from the politicians at the top. The actual bureaucratic machine was as efficient as it could be with the resources available, with the money afforded to it by the politicians, and while operating within a system where the rules or continuously changing or can be influenced by a politician or attacked by the same for political “points”. 

To put it simply, the reason the bureaucratic system was slow was due to the poor pay and poor staffing. This is directly attributable to the funds allocated to various agencies. You can’t retain staff when they are priced out of the cities where the agencies are. You also can’t cut the budgets and not give pay increases. It requires a certain mindset to stay. It isn’t the stereotype of the “lazy governmental worker”. Most are overworked, underappreciated and underpaid. It is exhausting. Then you have to fear for your job every time the government changes parties. You have asshole nazis “DOGEing” the government and causing the remaining staff to be more overworked. It is dumb. It is unfair to those workers. It is treating them less than those in the private sector. It is wild. Almost every single job in government requires a college degree yet for some reason the stereotype is that they are dumber than normal to be in government. Never mind that most have very specific skill sets and more knowledge of laws and regulations than the people writing the very same.

Another nonsensical thing government workers must deal with is politicians trying to run it like a business. In what world is that a good thing? The MAGA nazis love this idea though they also are mostly not able to work in business due to felony convictions and also think the only man to go bankrupt in a casino while not gambling is a top businessman. It makes sense why they would be confused. Not much reasoning and understanding there. Government is supposed to perform the functions of society that are needed by everyone to allow the country to function and for items that should not be in the hands of corporations who will only maximize profits. Education, roads, healthcare (someday right?), mail, etc. You get the idea. These benefit all. They need to be free. Not run like a business. You can’t have government workers who normally know their job is something along the lines of “to be stewards of governmental funds and benefit public use” try to run governmental functions like a business. They are contradictory. It leads to corruption and opportunities for fraud. Check that. It has. And usually not by the governmental workers but by those who take advantage of running something like a business (HINT: the politicians).

Speaking of fraud, that is also a common saying thrown out. “Eliminate government fraud and waste!” Well, waste is due to the understaffing and is only a matter of opinion. There are very specific rules for procurement, education policies and filing. They must be followed. It takes time. Those rules also eliminate fraud when followed. There are more checks in a government transaction than a business one. It is out in the open. This is just a line to scare people about the big bad bureaucracy. 

All of this to say, I believe this myth led to us being in this fascist state. The masses are not smart. They bought the lie. MAGA liked it because it made them feel smarter than someone. Wrong again on their part. Regular republicans (Not sure if still around) used it to get power. Find one instance of a worker defrauding the system that would not have been resolved if the agency had the manpower and resources to monitor their employees as intended. You can’t. The fraud only occurred because of lapse due to lack of resources to monitor. Everything leads back to that one problem. Well that and lies thrown out by republicans to force people to fear government workers and make themselves look like the heroes to end it. Guess what? They aren’t that. They are the villains and the criminals.