I just came back to Houston from a day-trip to Washington D.C. to attend some meetings with regulators regarding new oil and gas royalty-valuation regulations.
As an illustration as to what's wrong with government: The bureaucracy believes that this regulation will cost industry almost $100 Million dollars per year (that's low FWIW), and we were granted a 30 minute audience with one of the king's minions.
That this happens with great regularity shows the ever-deepening hole that is becoming the regulatory state under President zero.
D.C. is a monument to the leviathan.
They actually put on their license plates "taxation without representation" because they don't have a voting congressperson (and think they should qualify for statehood) in D.C. They have a highway system that seems to be designed by morons, a public transit system that continually catches on fire, and an entire system of being that's designed to both reflect, and promote, the Federal government system. (The tallest building is, by law, the Washington Monument, which fulfills the ideal that nothing, or no one, is more important than the government.)
Alphabet soups are everywhere, and young workers spend the day either surfing porn (if news reports are to be believed) or (apparently) running around in parks. Only a few workers seem to actually be getting any work done and most of those are lobbyists from private industry.
There is an earnestness around those who work for the government, an attitude of arrogance as well, as if what they are doing is really more vital to the survival of the Republic than the attainment of wealth by those in the private sector. When asked, in private moments, some of them will admit that what they are doing is how things ought to be. Sharing a beer with some of them is typically the best way to get them to cop to this, a belief in not only their superiority, but in the inherent good in government and the all-encompassing evil in the private sector.
Then, they're off to run in the park or head to a concert or do the things that young, primarily Caucasian it should be noted, progressives like to do. (When they're not telling people what it is they should do).
I was amazed to find out that D.C. had Uber and Lyft. But then, Uber'ing around town is still considered "cool" despite some of the older cronies in the Democrat party saying so, my belief being that it will eventually win out over the tired taxi lobbies as the old guard fades away into their well-off political retirements.
D.C. is a land of mass-marketed "craft" beer, modern-day taverns that feature gourmet, "organic" food, often marketed as "farm-to-table" but probably from the back of a Sysco truck, of pub-crawls and late morning work times which allow for sleeping in after you've had two too many the night before.
IF you can afford to live in D.C. of course, which only a select few (again, mostly Caucasian, progressive) can. The rest of the crowd have to move out to the sticks where it's becoming more and more difficult to get into town, where a commute from Springfield can take over two hours, where the Metro system is such a mess it burns more often than not, and has just fired most of its management. Most people just walk.
Despite all of this, there's a pride around D.C. of their public treasures. The Pentagon (of course) was roundly ignored but almost everyone took pains to point out that we were "just caddy-cornered" from the White House, and that I should visit D.C. soon because "there were some great new monuments" to be seen. You get the feeling that even the people who are lobbying against the Obama administration are voting for him. Part of the reason for that is job security, and part is because D.C. has fallen victim to a sort of Statist group-think.
There's no job small enough that the Government cannot, and should not, go for a large, unwieldy solution. There's no issue so inconsequential as to stoop below a regulatory need. Everything that you do, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the poop you take, the food you eat, the alcohol you consume, the TV you watch the decisions you make that harm no one whatsoever except yourself. ALL of that must be regulated by one of the thousands of alphabet-soup organizations that make up government in the U.S. of A.
And the seat of that government lies in Washington D.C. whose primary residents are working overtime (within union rules of course) to make absolutely sure everyone and everything is operating within the parameters that they have decided is best. And this, is ALL they do. All day, all night. Because it's what we've asked them to do.
Now you see why it's going to be such a task to untangle the regulatory state. Because hives of these people exist not only in Washington D.C. but in every State Capitol and every major city and every county seat and every small bit of government you can find.
Behold how free.
