Killing Bureaucracy

Do we need another committee or commission to figure out what went wrong with Hurricane Katrina Relief or is it just another time, money and resource wasting project that can be resolved by each area concentrating on their own area of expertise and responsibility?

The answer is, “Hell no!”.

The failures run the gamut from individuals to leaders, from citizens to city to state to federal, from bureaucracy to actual law, which means that efforts must be made across the board, from the lowest to the highest to evaluate and make changes to the level of responsibility, planning, communications, organization, leadership and law.

What’s likely is that, instead of streamlining any of this, government involvement will simply create more bureaucracy, more law, red tape, more of the same that we have already received. To simply point to individuals, decide that they should take the fall and fire them, would not solve the problem either.

No defense for anyone here, but it would be OVER simplifying the solution and would let people breath a sigh a relief, go back to what they were doing, once again paying little or no attention to the problems at hand. The same will happen once a committee or commission gets its hands on the issue. Just like 9/11, the citizens of this country watched congress and the White House go through contortions and act as if they were deciding how many bedrooms and separate baths they should build in their new home on the Riviera of Federal Boondogles at the tax payers expense.

As usual, the citizens of the country were complacent and relieved that SOMEBODY ELSE was looking into and taking care of it. We turned back to our television, our magazines, our movies, our Play Stations, the concerns of making dinner and deciding which bill to pay this week while the “remodelers” told us they were fixing the house, putting in new plumbing, a security system with a direct line to police and fire departments, bullet proof glass, electronic fence, steel doors, iron bars, fire proof insulation and roofing, five rotteweilers, a panic room and they’d throw in an armored humvee or two for transportation.

While we were not overseeing the remodeling efforts, the contractors brought in cheap labor to stand around and pick their noses, drink your beer (or wine depending), steal your grandmother’s silver, jack your car, sell your own dog to a chemical testing lab, while the contractors (senators, representatives, governors, city council members) use most of your payment and your credit account at the local hardware store to remodel their own homes and buy some nifty laser guided levels and saws (with their own titanium cases and the equipment rarely leaves the cases) before finally instructing the cheap labor to paint the walls, repair the holes (that they put there) and move the furniture.

Don’t forget to tie tin cans to the door handles for a security alarm and put the ceramic dog by the door.
Finally, they hand you the bill with an explanation that they had greatly underestimated the cost of the security remodeling, it’s now twenty times more than the initial projections, and the invoice has four line times:

Labor -$3,345,219,256.13
White Paint - $8756.99
Miscellaneous - $61,789,563,242.27
The look on your face when you actually do have an emergency: priceless

Your service contract has a large print single line, “On Call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to handle all problems with installed products and threats to the safety of you and your home.” Under that in extremely small print:

Except on weekends, federal holidays, weekdays between the hours of 5:01pm and 8:29 AM. On call repair and response services are included after purchasing the six year service contract and paying an additional $5 billion per year service fee. All repairs and updates to installed systems will be at the owner’s expense. Contractor may send you arbitrary charges for goods and services bought for the contractor’s home, family, friends, or unrelated projects at any location serviced by the contractor. Failure to pay these charges will result in your tin cans…er…security system being uninstalled at an additional cost to you that will be specified at the time of removal. Contractor is not libel for death or injury caused by failure of security systems to be present, to properly function or for the lack of response from any of the contractor’s representatives, sub-contractors or designated scapegoat. In the event of an actual emergency, dial 911. If 911 places you on hold or is unavailable to respond, hang up and dial 1-800-RED-CROSS.

The contractor will not even lift a pen to take down your name without first consulting a panel of lawyers to insure there is no legal risk to the contractor or other designated representative. Scapegoats may be sued or lambasted at your leisure. Legal services will be billed to the customer at an amount to be specified later. Prior to any assistance being provided, the customer will also complete 9 million forms in triplicate regarding customer information, assessment of needs, specific list of requirements and requested assistance, with a three million word essay on why you deserve any assistance at all. The customer will need to attach a copy of this service agreement with each of the completed forms. The customer will be responsible for all administrative costs for submitting this document including $50.00/document not including labor and other unspecified charges.

Contractor reserves the right to addend this service agreement without notice input from the customer. Any attempt to provide your own security will be considered a breach of contract and will be subject to harsh penalties.

If you have any questions, don’t call us, we’ll be on vacation.

Thank you and have a nice day.

You want something to get done? Let the citizens get it done. Yes, the citizens. Get a group of private citizens with backgrounds in customer service, management, engineering, communication technologies, a couple of efficiency experts, several recent victims of disasters and incompetence , one logistics rep from the military, one red cross volunteer, one lawyer and Donald Trump.

I bet you we could fix this problem much faster, easier and get results.

Something we won’t be seeing out of a blue ribbon panel or congressional committee.

Inspired by Michelle Malkin’s Not Another Damn Commission.