Not just FEMA


Has government gotten too big to actually do anything?

Daniel Henninger writes in today's OpinionJournal.com.

George Bush knew these things when the idea of creating Homeland Security first arose. Ultimately, he signed on. The devil's bargain with this agency has been the hope that first Tom Ridge and now Michael Chertoff would somehow rationalize this new Leviathan to protect us before a WMD incident blows in a major U.S. city. Doubts that Homeland Security can do this is what led the Department of Defense recently to put forward a Strategy for Homeland Defense, which would give the Pentagon primary responsibility for mitigating a post-WMD disaster. This is the RoboCop solution.

Amid Katrina's multiple catastrophes, people heard of fast action by Wal-Mart and Home Depot and wondered why the Federal Emergency Management Agency can't be more like that. The ancient answer lies in examining the rituals and incentives to perform, or not perform, of the old Leviathan.

Mr. Henninger has put his finger on it. Government agencies don't have a self-correcting feedback mechanism like in the free market. A government agency can only be corrected by outside forces. Process tends to pile on process with no incentive to get rid of the overhead and bottlenecks.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - September 30, 2005 at 04:54 AM  Tag


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