There are unfortunately too many examples of government agencies being bloated, inefficient, and worse — ineffective. Despite that, there are also endless demands government get even more involved in our lives anyway.
It’s always been a mystery to me why we want the government to do more stuff when what they do now is too often done poorly.
For years Western State Hospital has had performance issues. The federal government has repeatedly warned them about losing funding if it didn’t improve. Last week they made good on the promise and cut off $53 million in funding, and decertified them.
I don’t know what being decertified here means, but I do understand $53 million is a lot of money and it seemed it’s just being shrugged off as only 20 percent of their funding.
Somebody needs to be held responsible for this ongoing debacle but likely won’t be.
Maybe if our governor (where the buck stops) and our state attorney weren’t so fixated on personally destroying a florist in Eastern Washington, they’d have had time to work on the problems at Western State.
And speaking of government agencies’ performance, the DOL will soon begin to issue compliant driver’s license and identification cards to residents who want to pay more for the privilege.
I can recall getting my first license and having to prove who I was, where I lived, and that I was a legal resident. I did that over 40 years ago and I’ll bet many of you did as well.
So it seems to me my license really isn’t the problem — why do I have to do anything at all? How about they just leave my license and me alone?
Instead, go back to the date of the political change that decided it was a good idea to give anyone a license or ID card without that proof, and charge them to fix it? Why is the problem those of us who have already done that?
I suppose I could just use my non-compliant driver’s license, try to remember my passport (along with all the other things I need to remember), so I can board a domestic flight on those occasions I need to.
While trying to understand more about this, I found an image of a man holding up a sample of the new compliant driver’s license. Ae looked pretty happy.
I can only assume he’s probably a public employee, or someone who doesn’t yet realize what it will cost to get it.
The gas in California is expensive and not too long ago the elected officials in Sacramento raised taxes even higher on gas. Recently there appears to be a revolt forming there because some people have had enough. So there’s an initiative to roll that tax back, apparently in part because they won’t fix their roads and haven’t spent the taxes they pay for roads already, on roads.
We also have high gas taxes (and a governor who loves taxes) and just like California, an abundance of crappy roads. As I have traveled around the western US, I’ve encountered gas as much as .50 cents per gallon cheaper in states with roads that were much better that ours. Why is that?
I’ve also paid .15-.30 cents less per gallon in Oregon — and they pump my gas!
So when I read there will be a carbon “fee” initiative on the ballot to (they claim) fight climate change by lowering carbon emissions it just sounded like a load of manure to me.
Experience tells me it will just waste money, add to the size of government, cost us even more at the pumps and do little, if any, of what they promise. And our roads will still be crappy.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
