Help from the Government

There are many good people who work for the government, but as an institution, the government can be pretty useless. While the people who work for the government often go to extraordinary lengths to do their jobs, often times the "system" is just plain against them.

I recently had two emails that kind of illustrate the point.

One is from someone who works in a state penal system. This person is a counselor, and is looking for help in the form of someone who can come and talk to inmates who are about to be released to help motivate them to avoid gang affiliation and criminal activities once they get released, and to give them some ideas how to do so.

I applaud this individual. I wish we had more like this person. While many government employees are simply bureaucrats and sit around doing their job, no more no less, this person is taking initiative to find out how to do the job better, more competently, more thoroughly. This person is trying to serve the community by helping keep people who have committed crimes and are finishing their prison time from returning to a life of crime upon release. This is also a tremendous service to the prisoners who are about to be released. The effort here is to create a true win-win situation, helping all parties involved. God bless you for trying!

What's irritating, though, is that the government's penal system -- in this person's state and in every other -- should already have such a proactive program in place. Instead, they so often just release the prisoner back into the same system from which that prisoner came. Often times, the only change is that the individual's attitude has been hardened by the prison time, and the individual has learned more about crime by exchanging stories with other prisoners.

This brings me to the other email I got.

A mother is looking for help for her son, who wants to change, is trying to change, but finds life outside prison very challenging. She asked if there are any government programs that can help.

Of course, there probably are some government programs that could be of help.

The point is, though, that they shouldn't have to be asking. There should be proactive involvement on the part of the government-run penal system with a list of support organizations that people can contact upon their release. Those support organizations could be, and probably would be, private-sector and faith-based. The government doesn't have to recommend them (and shouldn't -- First Amendment); they can merely make the information available for those who want it.

True change in a person's life is a spiritual matter. In general terms, even if a person is not religious, the person needs to want to change and try hard to do so. Of course, as a Christian, I believe we all need to change, and that is why God sent His Son to us: to help us to change and to show us how.

There are certain things the government can do for us and should do for us. Defend the nation on the federal level (national defense), and defend society on all levels (policing), are two functions that come to mind. It is inappropriate to privatize these functions as they entail power that is too easy to abuse. For a similar reason, I am against privatizing prisons.

Beyond certain functions, though, the government can be pretty useless.

In New Orleans, for example, there were people who had spent so many years receiving government checks and living in government housing -- checks and housing that were intended to be temporary -- that they forgot how to take care of themselves. What was supposed to be a safety net became a hammock. The government's programs were counterproductive, creating a culture of helplessness and dependence on the government. People were taught a culture of victimization; they became addicted to government assistance. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the government showed how worthless it can be in a crisis, and these people were left in a devastated place that was suddenly and to a great extent temporarily ruled by criminals.

I think it's time we take a good, hard look at what little it is that government can actually do for us, and then pay government accordingly -- a low, flat tax.

Eliminate all the useless or counterproductive government programs -- the pork -- and we could have a whopping tax cut, which would mean more money in our pockets. That money would be invested and spent, spurring economic growth. The private sector would have more funding for the faith-based and charitable programs that really work, eliminating, through increased economic opportunity and a better-funded private sector safety net, much of the need for government programs. And, the government, taking a smaller piece of a bigger economic pie, would have more tax dollars to spend -- enough to give people like that counselor I mentioned above a well-deserved raise!

The biggest help the government can give us is to cut our taxes as much as possible and leave us alone as much as possible.