New at Reason

August 31, 2007

Daniel Rothschild concludes his series on Hurricane Katrina with an argument about political leadership.

Comments

|8.31.07 @ 1:19PM|#

Such creativity and on-the-fly adaptation and innovation on-the-fly would have been inconceivable from FEMA, which kept physicians from treating wounded evacuees because they weren't registered with the federal government, and kept firefighters away from those in need until they completed sexual harassment training, and courses on FEMA's history.

Forgive me for starting a thread with a trollish comment, but what does government do well?

|8.31.07 @ 1:24PM|#

Umm... we're going to have to get back to you on that one.

|8.31.07 @ 1:34PM|#

Forgive me for starting a thread with a trollish comment, but what does government do well?

Um....THE ROADS!!!one11

|8.31.07 @ 1:36PM|#

Perhaps I should have asked "What services does government provide well?".

|8.31.07 @ 1:43PM|#

What services does government provide well?

Well, if you have a door that's jammed, they're more than happy to open it for you. Just call the police and say someone's dealing drugs at your address.

iowan|8.31.07 @ 1:58PM|#

Its ancient history, but in the 80's there was a nice example of public/private aide that worked out quite well in Iowa. This was during the two major famines in Cambodia and Ethiopia. The Des Moines Register (IIRC) spearheaded a campaign to bring in donations from private individuals. The state of Iowa greased the skids to get aid out the door.

The Iowa CARES and Iowa SHARES programs were delivering emergency supplies to both Cambodia and Ethiopia before the US congress even began to discuss the "appropriate" means to provide aid.

Of course, things are so much easier when your own turf isn't involved.

|8.31.07 @ 5:06PM|#

"""Well, if you have a door that's jammed, they're more than happy to open it for you. Just call the police and say someone's dealing drugs at your address."""

Yeah, but when you're on the floor bleeding to death because they shot you 10 times, you'll realize the someone else could have done a better job. A locksmith wouldn't confuse that remote control in your hand with a gun.

Shannon Love|8.31.07 @ 5:08PM|#

The link to the Gordan and Ikeda paper given the article did not work for me but this one did:

http://www.mercatus.org/repository/docLib/200708281_power_to_the_neighborhoods.pdf

|8.31.07 @ 5:10PM|#

"""Forgive me for starting a thread with a trollish comment, but what does government do well?"""

I don't know. From that example I'd say they are pretty good at preventing people helping each other in times of need.

Shannon Love|8.31.07 @ 5:50PM|#

By design, the government doesn't work quickly or efficiently. For democracy to work, government must before all other things be accountable to the citizens. The time and resources devoted to accountability significantly reduce the efficiency at which government works.

Government officials, from elected representative down to professional civil servants must be accountable to the people for every action they take and every dime they spend. In the real-world, only bureaucracy and diffuse authority can provide reliable accountability. Documenting everything and getting large numbers of people to sign off on every action prevents anyone from taking unaccountable action. It also prevents anyone from taking speedy, impromptu action as well.

It's dead certainty that every story of Katrina related corruption has an untold story government expediency and that every story of government expediency has an untold story of corruption.

There's an old engineering joke that says that a project can be done fast, cheap or right, choose any two. Likewise, government can be cheap, fast or accountable. Choose any two.

Government by design can never hope to master a situation like Katrina in a quick, cost effective and accountable manner because we designed it not to.

LarryA|9.1.07 @ 12:13PM|#

Enter FEMA. FEMA officials told Voitier she'd need to have a "kickoff meeting" before she could open the schools-where she'd meet not with parents, or students, or teachers, but with a federal environmental protection team, a historical preservation team, and the "404-" and "406-mitigation teams" (terms which refer to specific sections of the Stafford Act, the law that covers federal disaster response). And it wasn't a "meeting" so much as an introduction to the vast bureaucracy that was FEMA's "education task force," basically a list of barriers Voitier would have to clear before she could start classes. Voitier says she sat in the meeting thinking, "Can't somebody help me get a school started and clean my schools?"

Government response is typically "This is what assistance you are eligible to receive and how many documents you are required to file to receive it and how many reports you must submit about what you did with it." The question, "What do you need?" isn't even on their radar.

Government by design can never hope to master a situation like Katrina in a quick, cost effective and accountable manner because we designed it not to.

Unfortunately we've lost the part of the design that keeps government from getting the hell out of the way.

Mike Laursen|9.1.07 @ 1:46PM|#

Forgive me for starting a thread with a trollish comment, but what does government do well?

I've got full-on libertarian creds, but I can't subscribe to the view that government never does anything well. Any real world entity as huge as the American government system is going to produce a wide variety of experiences. Everyday, thousands of postal carriers, water treatment planet engineers, public school teachers, park rangers, etc., etc. go to work and do their best to do their jobs well. And, everyday, other people in the government put on incredible displays of everything from incompetence to evil.

The core concern of libertarians should be to keep an eye out for dangerous concentrations of power, either being abused or with potential to be abused.