2010 census - your tax dollars at work

Let me say this about that.

It is no secret that ‘government’, in any of it’s many forms, is the most inefficient mechanism ever devised by man.  Find something that needs to be done and the government will find a way to do it that will require twice the number of people. 

Federal government, state government, local government – it doesn’t seem to matter.  The 3rd thing you can rely upon after death and taxes, is that if the government is on the job, it will be a paragon of inefficiency.  We have all driven by a job site where there are four government workers standing around a hole in the ground, watching one poor bastard with a shovel actually doing the work.  If the job requires one guy to do the work, the government will send five.

All governments are inefficient, but I believe the law-making bodies in the State of Florida have set a new standard of inefficiency and ineptitude that will inspire all other governments to new lows.  To wit:  The south Florida city of North Miami Beach has lost it’s hole.

“Whaaaaat?”

How in the hell does one lose a hole?  Look-up…    the word “hole” in Webster’s dictionary and it will tell you that a “hole” is ‘the absence of mass – the presence of nothing’.  How, in the name of Beelzebub does one lose a thing like that?  How do you lose something that has no mass?

Well, my friends down at city hall in North Miami Beach have found a way to lose 254 of their holes.  Seems that back in 2006, the city gave a local contractor $780,000 to dig 254 manholes to access the cities underground sewers and utility tunnels.  And apparently, since a “hole”  is the absence of physical matter, the city never realized that they were missing.  Not until an auditor discovered that $780,000 was missing, along with 254 holes, did someone ask a city official about the discrepancy.  The contractor was paid, but no holes could be found.

“There was some breakdown in the system of checks and balances” was the explanation given by a member of the City Council.  Well, DUUUUUH !!

Fed-up with inefficiency and wasteful government spending, U.S. Senator William Proxmire established the “Golden Fleece Awards” in 1975.  This monthly award was given to the government agency that established creative new ways to waste taxpayer money.  One of his most famous awards was granted to the ‘National Institute on Drug Abuse’ for allocating $121,000 in federal funds to psychologist Harris Rubin to develop “some objective evidence concerning marijuana’s effect on sexual arousal by exposing groups of male pot-smokers to pornographic films and measuring their responses by means of sensors attached to their penises.”  You just can’t make this stuff up.

Apparently, it is one of life’s great mysteries as to what will happen if a 25 year-old guy smokes a joint and watches a porno flick.  So, thank you to all you taxpayers out there for contributing your hard-earned $121,000 to help solve this conundrum.

As all of you know, 2010 is the year when the United States government is mandated to conduct a population census.  It’s an extremely expensive undertaking ($11 billion in 2010), but it’s important and must be done.  But leave it to the government to find ways to make it as inefficient as possible.  In March of this year, I received a letter from the U.S. Census Bureau that told me my census form was “in the mail”.  Essentially, the government sent me a letter telling me that they had sent me a letter.

One of the reasons the census was so expensive this year is that the federal government hired 635,000 temporary employees to perform the count.  And, just to show you that your government thinks you have the IQ of a sea slug, the month following the hiring of the temporary census workers, President Obama announced major progress in his plan to reduce unemployment.  He cited a statistic that showed that the ranks of the unemployed had been shrunk by 635,000 workers.

Clarence Darrow, noted attorney and statesman in the early 20th century was once quoted as saying:  “As a child, my father told me that in the United States, ANYONE can grow up to be President.  I’m beginning to believe him.”

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo