Dysfunctional "Paperclip" Governance Got Us Into This Mess

I wasn’t surprised when a recently released Congressional report on the economic meltdown blamed government regulators.  After all we’re a society that blames police for criminals, teachers for poor parenting and health inspectors for contaminated food.

Maybe the only way we can truly fix government is to deconstruct it and then reconstruct it.  I know, except for the “reconstruct” part, I almost sounded libertarian.

Regulation of banks and oil drilling are good examples.  We had it in place already but from the beginning it was compromised by, well, compromise.  Then one side immediately starts to compromise it further, whenever they are in power, with inadequate funding or tying the hands of regulators or antiquated technology.

Then something blows up in our face and we go about finger-pointing as though we had a fully functioning regulatory apparatus in place and it failed when in reality, it isn’t funded to do the job, lacks the expertise and technology.

This is how we end up with government agencies that are dysfunctional, making government always the easy scapegoat.

That’s why the tax code must be scrapped and rebuilt…not just overhauled.  It worked in theory.  But Congress never did apply it universally or evenly and immediately riddled it with exemptions and loopholes and voila.

Our Congress needs what every true board of directors needs to be functional: people who know the difference between “paperclips” and “policy.”