Sometimes They Shine A Light

The Indianapolis Star doesn't always shine a light on government overruns or cost inefficiencies, but in Sunday's edition, they did. It brings up some significant numbers on some very big problems in state and local government.

First, let me say, I know most county and state government offices do an awful lot of work for very little compensation and with just as miniscule of budgets. Much of the infrastructure and protection for the state and counties' citizens goes largely unnoticed or uncommented on because there are thousands of tireless workers who carry on the fight to enforce the laws on the books and care for what Indiana citizens utilize every day.

That said, there are just as big of areas, mostly at the high administrative level, that are inefficient and wasteful. Multiple layers of government at the local level coupled with vastly oversized education and welfare bureaucracies create a ridiculous drain on the economy and are responsible for most of the vast increases in property taxes with which we must contend. The Star's editorial is just one small light on a vast problem and one that doesn't get enough headlines. Usually, it seems easier to fire whole fields of investigators or transfer whole offices to other duties in the hopes of being seen as doing something, anything to change "business as usual" government, than to go after the big lobbies and big unions that could seriously cripple or end the political life of the average politician. We must do what we can to more focus and direct the engine of our government to the areas that truly need healed instead of a small fix here or little bandaid there. While those small fixes seem to grab the big headlines, they solve the least amount of problems.

Our big problems are, we have an out-of-control property tax liability coupled with a horrendously ravenous welfare and education bureaucracy. The usual response would be to cut every other department and hope it looked like enough of a savings to satisfy the average taxpayer, even if it meant overall state laws and taxpayer services would suffer. More violations against state environmental regs or failed highway projects are easier to answer for than to reduce the number of welfare bureaucrats or shrink school administration any day of the week. That's why it's surprising to see the Star, a nominally Republican paper that always seems to favor Democrat issues, write such an editorial.