A Couple of Good Articles in Today's Wall Street Journal

Not many people write about this since C Northcote Parkinson's classic article in The Economist, November 19th, 1955. But now Paul C Light, Professor at New York University's Robert F Wagner School of Public Service, writing in the Op-Ed pages of Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, tells us, I think with a straight face, that we have a $1 Trillion Opportunity to streamline our federal government.

I have often fantasized about having an Open House in the many federal, state and local government offices we have in Billings. Wouldn't it be informative for all the government offices in the city to have one day a year in which the public is invited to see exactly what they do, and perhaps compare and contrast the output of an office with the number of people that allegedly work there. for example, to the left is a demonstration of what our fire department does.

The Law that Professor Parkinson puckishly came up with after lengthy study of the British Admiralty was: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. And related to this is the corollary of the rate at which bureaucracies expand over time, explained by the observations that "an official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals," and "officials make work for each other." 

I remember very well going to some office here in Billings to get my passport renewed and noting that there were two people to do the work that quite a bit less than one person could do easily. I remember making those same observations while visiting offices in Washington DC and doing something very similar when I was in the Air Force.

The other article I found fascinating was the revocation of the license of the doctor who first mused on the possible relationship of Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccine with subsequent autism. Apparently he was arrogant enough to think that he would never be caught out by reality, even though it took them at least 12 years to do it and multiple injuries and deaths from actual measles infections.