Getting It Right-How Do We Find Politicans With Backbones?

July 19, 2007

By: Sid Riley

This column presents a non-partisan, conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items that are impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope that you will read the column regularly and that it occasionally influences your opinions and actions. Now, on to the subject of the week::
"We Must Find and Elect Political Representatives That Have Enough Backbone To Protect Ordinary Citizens From Abuses By The Bureaucracy".
This change is needed at all levels of government. This includes the hopelessly dysfunctional federal level, the almost dysfunctional state level, and the rapidly becoming dysfunctional local level.
These huge bureaucracies become so mired down from the often conflicting maze of self created requirements, rulings, procedures, policies, codes, laws, and precedents, that they can neither make functional decisions, or positive progress. They become mired in their own bureaucratic crap.
Once a bureaucracy grows beyond a certain level, it begins to automatically expand and broaden it’s scope, increase it’s workload in order to continually justify added growth, and to increase it’s cost to the taxpayers. The only hope for corrective influence that remains is with the legislative branch of government. Only through a policy of reducing the legal requirements that provide the basis of operational justification for the various bureaucratic functions, can we ever hope to reduce or eliminate the threat that continual bureaucratic growth represents to our American society.
If we do nothing, then the only way that government size, efficiency and costs will ever be brought back to a level of reason is through a major economic upheaval resulting in another depression era. Starving citizens will not be able to feed the cost of the bureaucracy. At that time the size of the bureaucracies will shrink to the size needed to provide only essential services.
Sadly, the exact reverse is true. Our legislators continually enact new and broader laws that then spawn new bureaucracies or cause growth in existing bureaucracies. Every legislative session in Washington or in Tallahassee results in bureaucratic growth. This is also frequently the result of local sessions of the County and City Commissions.
On the local level a good example of this lack of concern for the rights of the ordinary citizens and instead a misdirected loyalty to the bureaucracy occurred during last week’s County Commission meeting. At that time the chief building inspector came before the commission and requested that the existing body of code requirements be broadened by making virtually all home alterations subject to his department’s control.
The commissioners could have resisted this expansion of the bureaucratic authority and protected the interest of the property owners. Instead, they conceded to the requested expansion of authority and the property owners lost some more of their rights. In the future this added workload in the inspection department will be used to justify additional inspectors, the needed additional vehicles and equipment, supporting staff, and additional office space. Then, because of this added need, the department’s budget will be proportionally increased. Then, the taxpayers will endure more taxation and fees to provide the funding. Thus their bureaucracies grow!
We desperately need to find local representatives that will not allow the same old bureaucratic games to be played year after year – at the taxpayer’s expense. We need to elect a group that will doggedly hold the line on the growth in the size, scope, and cost of government.
At the state level, a new statewide function was mandated by our legislature after the fiasco in New Orleans during Katrina demonstrated the ineptness of the local, state, and federal organizations. Their answer in Tallahassee was to create another huge, new, costly level of bureaucracy called the Department of Emergency Management. This new, emerging bureaucracy comes complete with a State Czar, a state organization, and an Emergency Management Director and staff in every county in Florida.
These new bureaucrats will shuffle papers and write rules and manuals while they wait and hope for a state disaster to occur. When one does finally occur, they will have the authority to take control of all county functions, including the Sheriff’s department. This opens the door for conflicts of the most extreme kind, as deputies now find themselves being told what to do by some non law enforcement bureaucrat instead of their High Sheriff. I fear it is an exercise in over reactive stupidity that we are all going to have to pay for.
To me, a more sensible approach would have been to create this function within the existing organization under the County Sheriff. An "emergency response" deputy or even Captain position could have been created. This person would have been given the necessary training and "certification", and during non-emergency periods (which is 99% of the time), he could have functioned usefully within the sheriff’s group. Lines of authority would not have been confused, and potential conflicts avoided. After all, the sheriff has been handling this responsibility for the past hundred years or so.
This approach would have increased the level of reaction capability and training within the county, without requiring a new building, and a separate new staff. Alas, our State legislators chose to go along with the bureaucracy and let it grow instead of being concerned about the added cost to the taxpayers of Florida.
At last week’s First Friday Chamber Breakfast the speaker was retiring Judge Bill Wright. Now Mr. Wright is a fine fellow, and probably a very good judge. However, one of his remarks vividly demonstrates the vast difference in perspectives between those working inside of the bureaucracy from those paying taxes and working outside of the bureaucracy.
Judge Wright bragged about how his function in our court house was bringing a $5.2 million dollar annual payroll to our community. Now from my perspective, his function has grown faster than any other county function over the past ten years, and has virtually filled the court house with "judical-crats". I look at the payroll that he boasted about for that group as $5.2 million tax dollars that has been taken away from the disposable income of the citizens. It is funny how perspectives can differ, depending on the person’s background.
These are but a few of many hundreds of examples where our representatives have failed us and allowed the bureaucracy to grow. We must find capable citizens that are willing to run for elected office and are willing to dedicate themselves to stopping this insanity. Otherwise, I fear for our society and our nation. Please help. Be active and you will be "Getting It Right".