During this time of a government shutdown and the repercussions of such an events, it is surprising that things function as well as they do without having the government actually in business.
The tag line describing that part of the government that is actually not in operation as “non-essential” is almost funny. In all my years of working in private businesses, I have never had the owner describe any part of their operation as “Non-essential”.
If our government is to really run like a business, and it is the biggest business in the country, it should operate the same way as a private business, anything that is non-essential be eliminated.
The term non-essential seems to be code in the government for everything that is oversight or supervisory in scope. In simpler terms, it is those departments that give permission for practically everything we are allowed to do.
The fundamental function of our government is to do only three things: Provide national security, build and maintain our infrastructure, and make laws to keep things fair. But it seems it has grown into a bunch of bullies that want to control practically everything we do.
Departments like energy, education, agriculture or housing do not produce one gallon of oil, teach one class, grow one bushel of corn or pound in one nail to build a house. These department are staffed with people who make very good salaries, working in very nice offices spending billions looking for ways to make more regulations that impact almost every sector of our lives.
The only living thing in this world that never dies are government bureaucracies. Once a bureaucracy is born, they live forever. Government has become a major handicap that is expensive, inefficient, slow and cumbersome with the benefits difficult if not impossible to see or understand.
With about thirty percent of the government not working during this period, it is very interesting to see what can still happen without their interference into our daily lives. It is a good test to see what we, as a society, have allowed to happen and if we really need these agencies that think we are too stupid to do things without their permission.
In the consulting world there is fundamental principle used to test management. How well would the business run without the existing management? If it would not run, the management is considering to be babysitting, that needs to give permission for every activity with the staff only doing tasks with no understanding for why they are doing those tasks.
The ideal result is a business with a staff that knows the object for what they are doing and not a simply mindless task that requires someone to constantly tell them what to do next.
Our government has become our baby sitter, trying to control almost every aspect of our lives. So in these times of having the non-essential aspects of government not working, maybe we should ask if these functions are really necessary if we are truly living in a democratic republic where free markets rule and capitalism can thrive. We as citizens should all be doing our part to keep things fair, honest and sustainable because it is the logical and right thing to do. Not a place where we let alternative agendas keep bureaucracies in power, like slave masters, that limit our freedom to do what is fair, honest and sustainable because we do care about this great country.