Once upon a time, I was asked if I was more of a believer in “big government” or “small government”.
My response was then, and still is, that I don’t really care about the size of government. I want the government to be invisible - something that you don’t normally notice in day-to-day life. When you do have to interact with it, that interaction should be as quick and painless as possible.
A couple of articles I’ve read and experiences I’ve had recently remind me of just how far away from my ideal of invisible, effective government we truly are. Consider the following:
- this New York Times article: “A new federal rule intended to keep illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid has instead shut out tens of thousands of United States citizens who have had difficulty complying with requirements to show birth certificates and other documents proving their citizenship, state officials say.”
- Given the circles I travel in with my wife (disabled in a car accident five years ago), I’ve become very aware of how inefficiently the disability side of Social Security operates. It can take up to three years to get to a favorable determination, and after that there can be many months spent in limbo while the bureaucracy is satisfied enough for payments to begin and a back-payment check to be issued.
- The Tennessean has carried articles Sunday and Monday describing issues with passport issuance arising due to changes in law requiring travelers who didn’t formerly have passports to obtain them. Monday’s article mentions that the delay in obtaining passports has doubled, increasing to at least 10-12 weeks for routine processing, and 3-4 weeks for expedited processing (up from 6-8 weeks and 7-10 days, previously).
I can appreciate the need to be more careful with border security, given the state of the world these days, but an effective government would have staffed up for the expected increase in passport applications ahead of the change in the law.
This is another item that strikes close to home for me. My wife and I are planning to take a cruise. We just discovered that she needs to get a new passport before the cruise.and now we’re hoping that the issuance delays aren’t going to get worse.
Considering how much we pay in taxes, you’d think that the feds would have the resources to get its jobs done relatively efficiently.