Warning: Wrecking Crew at Work
The story seems designed to repel your attention, like the wrong end of a magnet; the story is, at the same time, exactly what this election ought to be about. It is a perfectly formed artifact of conservative misrule, a little gem of market-based merde.
It seems that, over the years, an obscure Federal agency called the Minerals Management Service--a public agency, remember, that supposedly serves you and me--grew quite chummy with the private businesses it dealt with. Specifically, these private businesses were oil companies; the MMS's job was to collect royalties from them when they drilled on public land; and the oil industry's natural inclination was to pay as little as they could.
Naturally, the two became great friends, industry and business getting together in the kind of entrepreneurial synergy that conservatism has been telling us we needed for years. Every year the MMS would have a party in Houston at which they would hand out awards to oil companies. Executives went back and forth from the federal operation to the (far more lucrative) private one. Federal employees apparently got gifts, took trips, and even got laid courtesy of Big Oil.
It matters for two reasons: first, because this obscure little office is the second-largest source of revenue for the Federal Government after the IRS. What they let slide you and I will have to make up on April 15.
Second, because this bungle-dee-botch is what government looks like when you make it "market-based," as George W. Bush once put it. This kind of government answers not to the public but to the party with the most money. It's the same virtually wherever you look in conservative history: The FAA describing the airlines as its "customers"; officials at the Labor Department thinking of business as the "primary customer"; officers at the FDA allegedly regarding Big Pharma as "our client"; and, back in the Reagan years, even officials at the EPA speaking of business as the "primary constituent."
A third reason: Because this is not democracy. It is plutocracy.
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To summarize - Foxes don't make good hen house guards.
And don't; forget the stuffing of the FDA and EPA and other agencies with Bush appointees who censor objective scientific reports and twist findings to favor unregulated profiteering. Some of those who have been forced out, or had to retire for conscience's sake, have really shocking stories. Just Google "epa report censored" or "fda report censored" for plenty of links.
Add USDA reports. How many people world-wide would really freak if they read some of the USDA audits - actually posted on their website, about how H5N1 pandemic bird flu CAME FROM THE US before it started spreading in Hong Kong, thru unregulated virus shipments to labs. It was shipped from an unregulated lab here because labs are allowed to monitor themselves now (that is the result of this administration's "risk based analysis" and "performance based inspection" systems that translate to "police yourselves"!) Here is just one of the audits www.usda.g
It gets better - now, the gov't is closing their high security- off shore lab & moving it to the mainland (so a contractor can build a new facility) even though the majority of the researchers & scientists say that is REALLY a bad idea! Sure, let's put bird flu, BSE/Mad cow, anthrax, hoof and mouth, and other disease research RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COUNTRY. If these people don't have a death wish for us, I don't know who does.
Private enterprise will perform those duties efficiently, that the government does wastefully -- isn't that how they sold this one? The idea that competition would sweep in and drive down the cost of doing the country's business.
The problem is, those companies aren't beholden to the people at all, but to loose cost-plus contracts that AREN'T EVEN ENFORCED.
And even if they end up doing this or that "more efficiently" than the government would, where do the savings from that go? I don't think I have to tell you that all those profits go into private hands, rather than being recycled to do the people's business, as they would be if the government developed a budget surplus based on the savings (as it did during the Clinton years).
And finally, if private businesses do the people's business, then why aren't they held to the same standards of accountability that we expect from our government? If they cut corners to make more profits, then we deserve to know what corners were cut, and we should be able to take them to court for failing in their mandates, which happens a LOT!
Instead, legal action is blocked by claims of "proprietary" information (covers anything the public wants to know).
Democrats are "conservative" about protecting the Constitution, the rights it guarantees, and the checks and balances it has built into the government. A society run by corporations will ignore the Constitution and systematically destroy government oversight. The evidence is abundant in this administration, and will continue with a McCain presidency. An Obama administratrion will have to fight to preserve the Constitution and our democracy. In my opinion, this is the most serious issue of this election.
Heck, everything in the USA IS FOR SALE by the Republican gov't.
Corporate LOBBYISTS RULE.
No thanks. We've had 8 YEARS OF republican lobbyist kissing & LIES!
No more lies.
NO MORE YEARS for Republicans.
they deserve to LOSE.
Just more of the "family values" crowd.
Dysfunctional family values
A market based government? And a market based MSM. And a market based mid-east. And a market based bank regulation and bond investment grading system. A market based medical community that is required to get rid of the competition or find another game player.
Thats what the supply side economics is the definition of. You give all the tax right off's to the cronies and try real hard to ignore the FACT that working people are the side of the equation that creates the value in our country. When we began to destroy the middle class and the working people whole culture began comming unglued.
We hear those paper shufflers claim to be the one's who know how to fix the market place, not admiting that they ARE conservatives, but those paper shufflers are the one's that killed the market place in the first place.
Since this is a government agency situation, ya gotta wonder: did they go out and buy their own cocaine, or was it a perk from the DEA?
It is not a democracy or a plutocracy, it is a republic.
quote:Second, because this bungle-dee-botch is what government looks like when you make it "market-based," as George W. Bush once put it. This kind of government answers not to the public but to the party with the most money
That does not make since at all. First statement says, market based and the second says government. Which is it now?
Market based entity would be putting it up for all to bid with transparency for all to see the process.
You have Big Oil employees who care and get paid on the deal they make.
You have government employees that have no real connection or responsibility to the owners of the money, We the People.
And we wonder why, We the People get ripped off by the party with the most money, Lobbyists.
yes, change is needed and Palin has it right like some other governors I know. Transparency.
The problem with making anything in government "market-based" is that then the government is subject to the whims and greed of the free market. What Frank points out is a perfect example.
And I don't know where you get the idea that SP believes in transparency when she has gone to great lengths to hide and deny her own corruption scandal. Obama, on the other hand, created an internet listing government spending line by line, and did this with the most conservative Republican in the Senate, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. So, who has it right again?
Note the red-statedness of the bribes. Meth and Toby Keith tickets. BTW ole' Toby endorsed Obama
Remember the '80's with the blue suits and yellow ties? we were all so fat and happy we actually thought "whoever dies with the most toys wins" was a legitimate religious undertaking. Great soil for the "free market" frenzy to flourish in. Pendulum swings are exhausting and it seems like we could do a lot better managing our country. Right now its scary because it seems like the pendulum is going to fly off its hook and go through the window into fascist territory. I hope we start thinking of "american values" like honesty, thrift, ingenuity, compassion, and creativity. "values" almost sounds like a dirty word these days, conjuring up selfishness, isolationism and intolerance. The free market experiment has failed. time for the new new deal.
Great points! But let's face it, here at Huffington Post we're all pretty much preaching to the choir (and I don't mean preaching about Alaska being a safe haven when the apocalypse comes or about praying for a pipeline). We need, I mean NEED, to get these messages out to the general public. That is, the ignorant, misguided, and uniformed. We've got to get people to bury this ridiculous concept of identity politics. I don't want someone like myself to be VP; I want someone smarter and more knowledgeable. WE NEED TO DRIVE THIS MESSAGE HOME!! And we need to convey to people how vehemently the McCain camp is trying to manipulate us with smear and fear and outright lies. So, please, I implore you to send your post to battleground state newspapers and other media outlets. We need to do all we can to win this election. And with 53 days left, I'm starting to get really, really scared.
How true. I'm getting ready to retire after 30 years in the gov't. I have NEVER seen anything like this administration. They have sold off everything to contractors & their buddies and totally undermined service to the public. As a compliance agency that was forced to contract out the work & just "review" it, we found fraud based on pictures in files (we couldn't go look for fraud, we had to have a contractor take pictures & try to determine if it was occurring from them). The result was we were told we were no longer allowed to keep the pictures in the files and look at them! Let me give you a hint about what you will see in the next few years - if you think there is no Mad Cow in this country you will be rudely surprised. If you think your food supply is safe when the plants are allowed to police themselves, guess again. If you are pumped up about biofuels, guess who owns and operates all of the plants - also paid for by gov't grants. If you think it is ok to contract out government support services to the owners of Amway (guess what - Blackwater!!) - you are losing not only the image of the heroic US liberator to a snide and nasty torturer, but to a tax avoider too. The insidious deceit and frivolous disregard for what it really means to be an American is breathtaking.
I see a commercial, and a GREAT commercial if McSame/Palin have had questionable dealings with Minerals Management. Heck, what other Bush Mind government agencies have McSame/Palin been involved with?
Palin...Al
so this is what cheney and his cartel buddies klatched about without cluing us in...why does this stink worse than enron????
Putting the Republicans in charge of the government is like putting PETA in charge of McDonald's.
This is exactly what Obama has to emphasize in his policy wonk persona.
"For too long" he should say, "we have been told that government should get out of the way, that it is the problem. Let the free market system go unregulated and all will be well".
He should go on to say "Well that is what we have done and now our banking and housing systems are in trouble due to this philosophy. The Republicans have succeeded in privatizing many of the agencies of government, even the military, which absorbs 50% of all tax dollars".
He needs to emphasize that Republicans have used their philosophy to ruin our economy but enrich a few. They are incompetent and can't govern, and government cannot be left in the hands of the private sector exclusively, as Republicans believe.
Finally he has to say government CAN be a maginificent instrument that guides and regulates and contributes to the well being of everyone, not just the fat cats etc. etc.
Since Reagan, he should say, Democrats have been afraid to carry the banner of FDR, Teddy Roosevelt and their own accomplishments!!!
It is far too late for government ever again to be of for and by the people. The last opportunity died with JFK. Republicans and their fascistic corporate masters and co-conspirators have managed to convince the happless citizenry to buy into the bull crap mouthed by their "great communicator" fraudulent mouthpiece Reagan that government can't solve our problems because government is the problem. I don't think that consumate dummy even knew what he was doing, or saying for that matter.
The public is largely ignorant of how government works and what the bureaucracy is composed of or does within our governmental structure. The public has been brinwashed into believing that the bureaucracy is composed of lazy, uncaring incompetents. On the other hand the public has been forced to hear the repetitive mantra that private industry is competent and extremely efficient.
The absolute opposite was always true until private industry management people were appointed by Republican administrations to replace career professionals in every agency of government to oversee the industries from which they were transferred into government. In other words for example the Forest Service is managed by executives from forestry corporations, who make certain that their corporations are allowed to enrich themselves at the public's cost and avoid the regulations that may have been put in place to protect the forests and the tax payers.
In a reverse sense Reagan was right, the bastards who have been allowed to capture the bureaucracy away from public service are the problem .
Bush/Cheney packed federal agencies with their cronies. It's no surprise how things turned out. See the article in today's NY Times:
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