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John J. DiIulio Jr.: Big Government, Then and Now
Surveys tell us that Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with government institutions—from Congress and federal agencies to state and local governments. Given our aversion to taxes and bureaucracy, why do we demand the government do so much? And what can be done to improve the quality of our government’s performance?
In this provocative Conversation, University of Pennsylvania political scientist John J. Dilulio, Jr. argues that America does not have enough government workers to accomplish the tasks we demand of our government. Dilulio points to the paradox that we have not witnessed any increase in the federal workforce since the mid-1960s, while government spending has exploded since that time. Instead, the federal government has increasingly outsourced work to for-profit contractors, state and local employees who are de-facto federal workers, as well as non-profit workers. Making matters worse, we do not give the federal workers the discretion and oversight necessary to achieve good results. This “government by proxy,” according to Dilulio, is plagued by a lack of accountability, out-of-control spending, and poor outcomes. This is a must-see Conversation for anyone interested in the inner workings of American government.
Published in General
State and local governments have also been outsourcing, at least in part to avoid government unions.
The implicit assumption is that the problem with asking government to do so much is taxes and bureaucracy. That assumption is absurd–it is the thinking of a child who wishes upon a star for a perfect world. He wants Daddy to take care of him, but at no cost and with no means of execution. That we believe it’s correct, and are incapable of applying independent thinking to questioning this dogma–is a sufficient condition for failure.
The answer is education. We need an educated, competent intellectual class in control of government. Nothing stands out more consistently and clearly to me, in learning the history of the American revolution, than the fact that we had competent intellectual leadership. Without it, we would have simply had an American version of Robespierre and the Terror.