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Will getting rid of our government eliminate waste, fraud and abuse? [1]
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Date: 2025-02-18
Is the U.S. government so full of waste fraud and abuse that the only way to correct those issues, is to eliminate it?
How did we get into this situation?
Recall the original plan:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Also recall where and how the laws that would create such an evolving Union come from.
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives”
Never, since before the establishment of the U.S.A. have those ideas and ideals been unanimous among those in this country and elsewhere, who want the rules to be in their favor.
The conflict was there from the beginning.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The main problem was and is, how to set up a structure to support those goals?
It has always been a power struggle, but this radical idea about all men created equal really put the fox in the hen house. Even at the time of its creation in the late 1700s, the “all men” in the document, didn’t actually mean every man, much less any woman. As expected, there was resistance then as now, from those who controlled resources and had the power to accomplish whatever projects that came to their minds. If these men referenced in the preamble, were created as equals, and had an equal power to determine who could be the governors over the populous then that, on its face, diminished the power of those who control resources. What was the point of being rich and powerful if that power is in any way fettered?
Is this not the crux of the current state in the world?
Do individuals who have obtained power have the right to inflict their will on those who do not necessarily want the same things as the powerful?
Strip away the rhetoric and that is what it comes down to: my way or no way, and I control enough resources to force my way to prevail.
The founding fathers had this idea of a self-correcting, self-regulating system where there are three parts of the government that have different but equally powerful aspects. One could put into law those things that are to the benefit of the populous, another has the responsibility to enact those laws, and a third determine the boundaries and whether or not the ideas stay within the limits of the law. That is very different than one part, the executive, creating laws and determining their lawfulness and implementing them without any constraints.
That was the plan from long ago. It involves coming to a common consensus between the competing groups and developing compromises. It is deliberately inefficient. It forces constraints. It seeks not the perfect, but the doable. It goes against the “my way or else” philosophy of the powerful.
It is said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. It is also said that an all-electric automobile company was purchased by a powerful man and succeeded where others had failed. The message is clear; if you want a successful, profitable product, it takes a visionary with the determination to make the hard decisions that are necessary to have the product become a success in the market.
Here is the difference between a system that was designed to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty”, and an organization that has rule one, make a profit, and rule two, make every decision in favor of profit.
The product of a commercial entity is something that returns wealth to the entity. The product of a governing body are those intangible items listed in the preamble to the Constitution.
As it turns out, like grinding mountains into sand over millennia, with enough pressure applied to the appropriate places over a long enough time, the idea of a government that reduces the power of the powerful can be twisted into a form that reinforces rather than constrains their power.
It was so at the beginning, is so, and will be forever, unless we the people decide otherwise.
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