Howgovernment reallyworks

Everyone knows that government workers are lazy, inefficient, and waste taxpayers’ time and money. Why not turn everything over to private industry?

As an environmental attorney, I’ve worked for a private contractor and for federal and state government. In 20 years, I learned a few things.

I firstworked for a private company under contract to the federal government. Every time Imade a copy, I hadtocharge each page to one of many project account numbers, which I had to look up every time. It took 10 minutes and cost $40 to copy three pages.

Itwasmuch cheaper for the government to payme directly, so out of respect for taxpayers, I got a job with the feds, and worked under three different presidents. Each incoming administration is determined to make government better, so each administration restocks upper management with PeopleWho Hate Government Enough to Make ItWork. Those PWHGETMIWinevitably insist on sweeping changes in things that reallymatter, like the employee performance rating system: “Performance ratings based on pass-failwere a disaster! Governmentwould be much more efficient ifwe rated employees from 1 to 5!”

Either four or eight years later, a new administration takes over, determined to make government better. Within three days, the new PWHGETMIW declares: “Rating employees from 1-5 was a disaster! Government would be more efficient if ratings were pass-fail!”

PWHGETMIWare also responsible for such essential changes as renaming everything for no apparent reason. They redrawresource management boundaries and rename resource management units, but since they just restocked the newunits with the same people doing the same jobs under different titles, I never noticed any improvement in management outcomes.

Meanwhile, people who work for PWHGETMIW, career employees, actually do make government work. People like Vickie. Vickie thoroughly understood the oil and gas leasing program, and made sure that the process was fair for everyone.

Or Lisa, who retrofitted hundreds of school buses in Colorado with pollution control devices, saving thousands of Colorado kids from diesel fumes. Or Jeremy, ameticulous scientist, who examined a company’s proposed test for toxic air emissions. Jeremy found an unapproved change in the test equipment thatwould lead to inaccurate readings, and aminor change in the calculations that threwoff the test results. And Doug, who designed a vehicle emissions testing program that preserves Colorado air quality at the lowest cost to Colorado taxpayers.

Doug is a taxpayer. So is Vickie. And Lisa and Jeremy. They all pay taxes, and unlike PWGHETMIW, they actually do make government better.

But we all know that private industry does everything better than government, because only the pursuit of profits ensures competition and customer satisfaction. What better example than cable companies? Recently, my Internet service cut out several times a day. My cable company said I had a bum modem, and within two weeks, mailed me a new one. Didn’t work. I picked up another modem. Didn’t work. I contacted online customer service, and was connected to a polite but clueless rep.

Two days and 12 phone calls later, the modem still didn’t work. After four months of paying for a service I didn’t receive, I found, in the bowels of the cable companywebsite, an e-mail for the vice president of customer service, and finally got the service I paid for.

Government does work, but not because of the people who run it who hate government, but because of the peoplewhowork hard nomatter what rating system they’re under, or what their titles are. Hate government? You may be one modem away from becoming a Socialist.