Business is like water. It follows the path of least resistance. A fact which should birth shame in the hearts of all Americans is that for the last decade American Businesses have been in a mad rush for the door. They’ve left America, once the epitome of free enterprise, choosing instead to establish them in Communist China. Today Federal red tape and taxes are strangling American free enterprise.
Innovation is like lightning. It comes in a flash, burns white hot, and is impossible to bottle. When free enterprise is stifled by government interference in the marketplace the incentive to develop and produce are stunted. Americans have always been the can-do people. We’ve always been the leaders in invention and innovation. Our entrepreneurs have traditionally led the world in new patents and processes. In 2011 many sources predict China will take the lead in high tech patents applied for and new industrial processes pioneered. It takes thinking outside the box to find the new and provide the best. In America today the Federal Government has set to work making the box stronger, to weaving a mesh of regulations and taxes, and turning the box into a cage.
The grand gesture, voting to repeal Obamacare presented by the House Republicans as proof that they’ve become true fiscal conservatives, is a hat trick meant to beguile the newly awakened and lull them back to sleep. The smoke screen of denying funding as a way to stop the implementation is hollow argument offered by people who know better to people who should know better. The aspects of the national health plan which are taking effect in 2011 do not require any funding. They come in the form of regulations, fees and taxes.
Grid lock is the best we have to hope for from the 112th Congress. The very idea that any repeals or rollbacks of the omnibus thousand page take-over bills will pass in Harry Reid’s Senate and be signed by Mr. Obama is laughable. Not only will the Senate not validate the results of November 2010, it is working diligently to stack the deck with new rules to prevent the enlarged minority from interfering with the evolutionary changes the Progressives constantly seek to enact as they attempt to evolve past the Constitution. What we need now is the party of “Hell no!” acting as a roadblock to the Progressives long march to the corporate state. Reading the Constitution at the beginning of the session is a great act of showmanship. Demanding that every piece of legislation contain a clause citing the constitutional empowerment for its enactment is long overdue.
However, what we need is a House that remembers that according to the Constitution all tax bills must originate in the chamber of the people. What we need is more than showmanship and more than doing what should have been done since 1789. What we need is a House that’s willing to to call out the other branches of the Federal Government when they exceed their constitutional powers. The House has the power to investigate, subpoena, the power to impeach, and the power to bring suit in Federal Court. They have the power to expose the Progressive juggernaut for what it is: an express on the road to serfdom.
Their economic plan is merely inflating the next bubble and praying that the rest of the world considers America too big to fail. America is fast approaching the tipping-point as a global manufacturing power. Manufacturing made-up 53 percent of the economy in 1965, it only accounted for 39 percent by 1988, it accounted for merely 9 percent in 2004, and the decline continues. The warning signs are everywhere: a loss of a staggering 32 percent of manufacturing jobs since the year 2000, employment in the computer industry is lower in 2010 than it was in 1975, and we’ve lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. We are turning into merely a source of raw materials and a market for manufactured goods from China, which is the textbook description of a colony.
No matter what the rhetoric, no matter what the stated intentions, it appears the consequences of the last ten years work by the best government money can buy are the unintended consequences. These political savants are so clueless that their answer to the problem of too much government and too much regulation is to appoint new committees, commissions, and expand the bureaucracy to study the old and recommend solutions that entail new regulations and more government.
This isn’t rocket science. We aren’t trying to figure out the orbit perimeters of a sling-shot around the moon to reach Saturn. This is Political Science and Economics: the arcane arts of who gets what, when, and how.
If we want manufacturing and innovation to grow reduce taxes to the lowest in the world and take the steel boot of regulation off the throat of free enterprise and watch our manufacturing base and our industrial output soar. If you want more jobs stop stifling small business with uncertainty and watch the unemployment rate fall. If we want more consumer spending instead of the next round of bail-outs and stimulus pay-offs to campaign contributors give the American people a one year federal tax holiday and watch consumer activity go through the roof. In other words grow the economy not the bureaucracy.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com View the trailer for Dr. Owens’ latest book @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ypkoS0gGn8 © 2011 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook.
Showing posts with label Federal bureaucracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Federal bureaucracy. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The Bottleneck is Always at the Top
Why does bureaucracy cover the world? Because bureaucracy is the most efficient form of organization ever devised. Max Weber first pointed out the defining traits of a bureaucracy calling it the ideal type of organization because it’s rational, efficient and practical. Before his definition this form of organization was called common sense.
As with most things in life the foundational elements of bureaucracy, the things which make it good, can also make it bad. Division of labor which allows the best adapted to concentrate on appropriate tasks producing efficiency also produces people who can only do one thing. Layers of authority make it clear who’s in command also deprives those below a role in decisions and facilitates the concealment of mistakes. Written rules and regulations which allow everyone to know what’s expected also stifles individual initiative and imagination. Impersonality which reduces personal bias also makes people feel like faceless numbers and fosters feelings of alienation. Employment based on technical qualifications discourages favoritism and also discourages ambition. Maintenance of position as the primary occupation of office holder, which produces continuity also breeds stagnation. Promotion based on seniority institutionalizes stability, but it also brings those who can survive in the system to the top instead of innovators. All of which equals the bottleneck is always at the top.
The Leviathan of national government has grown far beyond anything our founders would’ve envisioned. Spreading across the landscape inserting tentacles into everything from who does what to who gets what. Americans stand before the drones making up the business end of the federal bureaucracy hat in hand waiting for service. We’re in the midst of a transaction wherein we’re expected to trade in our freedom for cradle-to-grave security and individual liberty for bureaucratic regimentation. The problem is that when our Progressive collectivist leaders herded us toward giving them total control of our lives the American people have risen up in Tea Parties, Town Halls and State governments declaring, “We the People will not go quietly into that dark night!”
The more the President flexes his media-enhanced, teleprompter-controlled, highly-reverberated communication skills the more people don’t want what he’s selling. Using procedure and manipulation the same 50+ 1 strategy candidate Obama said should not be used to pass health care was used to pass health care while the rest of the agenda stands waiting in the wings. With an overwhelming majority in Congress and enough votes to make the Progressive’s evolution/revolution happen, watch as the total transformation of America metastasizes before the people get a chance to speak in November.
What a travesty! First the best Congress money can buy passes bills without reading them. Now we’re bluntly told we don’t get to know what’s in them until they pass them. It is hard to imagine such arrogance. After taking control of GM, Chrysler and the largest insurance company the Progressives reformed America’s medical system into who knows what and are now moving on to and the financial sector. What will they bail-out (take over) next? The unions? The fossil press? This is no spur of the moment off the cuff solution to immediate problems. This is not just a case of an imperial president passing collectivist legislation against the wishes of the electorate. This is the culmination of a long march by the Progressives. They’ve pretended to be one thing or another: liberals, unions, advocacy groups, or whatever it took to slip past the voters. And let’s face it, they’ve been much more dedicated and disciplined than those who want a nation based on free enterprise and individualism.
From Teddy Roosevelt to Barak Obama we’ve had one Trojan horse after another: one more Federal mandate, one more dependency creating entitlement, and each one a step closer to total government control. Luckily the American spirit of individualism and tradition of liberty hasn’t been completely cowed by 100 years of the Progressive’s evolution/revolution. Not only are the Tea Party and the Town Hall Patriots continuing to stand up for liberty many states are lining up to resist these naked power grabs. Congress refuses to have open debates on the implementation of legislation designed to fundamentally transform America. The Pelosi-Reid Congress following their leader have instituted what in effect is a one-party government seeking no input from the minority party and ignoring the outcry of citizens. They’ve bludgeoned their collectivist bills through to the President’s desk, but when he signed them he signed the marching orders for a legion of awakened voters who will troop to the polls and guide the way home to the America we’ve known and loved. The night may be dark, the way may be long, but if we keep the faith and keep the peace we shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
As with most things in life the foundational elements of bureaucracy, the things which make it good, can also make it bad. Division of labor which allows the best adapted to concentrate on appropriate tasks producing efficiency also produces people who can only do one thing. Layers of authority make it clear who’s in command also deprives those below a role in decisions and facilitates the concealment of mistakes. Written rules and regulations which allow everyone to know what’s expected also stifles individual initiative and imagination. Impersonality which reduces personal bias also makes people feel like faceless numbers and fosters feelings of alienation. Employment based on technical qualifications discourages favoritism and also discourages ambition. Maintenance of position as the primary occupation of office holder, which produces continuity also breeds stagnation. Promotion based on seniority institutionalizes stability, but it also brings those who can survive in the system to the top instead of innovators. All of which equals the bottleneck is always at the top.
The Leviathan of national government has grown far beyond anything our founders would’ve envisioned. Spreading across the landscape inserting tentacles into everything from who does what to who gets what. Americans stand before the drones making up the business end of the federal bureaucracy hat in hand waiting for service. We’re in the midst of a transaction wherein we’re expected to trade in our freedom for cradle-to-grave security and individual liberty for bureaucratic regimentation. The problem is that when our Progressive collectivist leaders herded us toward giving them total control of our lives the American people have risen up in Tea Parties, Town Halls and State governments declaring, “We the People will not go quietly into that dark night!”
The more the President flexes his media-enhanced, teleprompter-controlled, highly-reverberated communication skills the more people don’t want what he’s selling. Using procedure and manipulation the same 50+ 1 strategy candidate Obama said should not be used to pass health care was used to pass health care while the rest of the agenda stands waiting in the wings. With an overwhelming majority in Congress and enough votes to make the Progressive’s evolution/revolution happen, watch as the total transformation of America metastasizes before the people get a chance to speak in November.
What a travesty! First the best Congress money can buy passes bills without reading them. Now we’re bluntly told we don’t get to know what’s in them until they pass them. It is hard to imagine such arrogance. After taking control of GM, Chrysler and the largest insurance company the Progressives reformed America’s medical system into who knows what and are now moving on to and the financial sector. What will they bail-out (take over) next? The unions? The fossil press? This is no spur of the moment off the cuff solution to immediate problems. This is not just a case of an imperial president passing collectivist legislation against the wishes of the electorate. This is the culmination of a long march by the Progressives. They’ve pretended to be one thing or another: liberals, unions, advocacy groups, or whatever it took to slip past the voters. And let’s face it, they’ve been much more dedicated and disciplined than those who want a nation based on free enterprise and individualism.
From Teddy Roosevelt to Barak Obama we’ve had one Trojan horse after another: one more Federal mandate, one more dependency creating entitlement, and each one a step closer to total government control. Luckily the American spirit of individualism and tradition of liberty hasn’t been completely cowed by 100 years of the Progressive’s evolution/revolution. Not only are the Tea Party and the Town Hall Patriots continuing to stand up for liberty many states are lining up to resist these naked power grabs. Congress refuses to have open debates on the implementation of legislation designed to fundamentally transform America. The Pelosi-Reid Congress following their leader have instituted what in effect is a one-party government seeking no input from the minority party and ignoring the outcry of citizens. They’ve bludgeoned their collectivist bills through to the President’s desk, but when he signed them he signed the marching orders for a legion of awakened voters who will troop to the polls and guide the way home to the America we’ve known and loved. The night may be dark, the way may be long, but if we keep the faith and keep the peace we shall overcome.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
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