Federal government is a dismal failure

In a 20 minute span on TV one night this week we learned that the TSA failed at a rate of 95 percent to stop TSA employees who were playing terrorists from smuggling banned items through security. That is an unimaginable level of ineptness. One senior officer was transferred, no one fired.

We also learned that the IRS had sent $6.5 billion in bogus refunds. No one was deemed responsible.

A third story revealed that Hillary Clinton’s emails could have been captured by the State Department two years ago but they treated her with kid gloves. No one was blamed.

The fourth story told of extreme premium hikes in Obamacare, some greater than 40 percent for next year.

The point of all this is that the government is incapable of doing what they ask us to trust them to do. Their demands are always for more money, more people, more authority.

The results are always failure. Always.

The government is incompetent, and we pay an enormous price for their failings, but never more than in the current administration. It’s enough to make one fearful to turn on the news.

GOP hopefuls extol states’ rights issues

While listening to early political speeches by the assemblage of Republican presidential hopefuls, there is a consistent theme of small government and a balanced budget. They praise the strength of the governors who have first-hand operating responsibility and closer relationships with voters.

Frankly, the Republican philosophy seems to call for strong governors and a shrinking Washington bureaucracy. The federal government should be in charge of defense and environment and interstate matters such as interstate highways, bridges connecting states, and air and rail travel. Almost every necessary individual service including education and health care and local street and road conditions is better served locally. Who, except those living in a state should judge whether the minimum wage is sufficient for the cost of living?

The well-worn phrase “all politics is local” is more than a slogan.

Fifty strong state governments with locally elected public officials provides the greatest accountability to like-minded individuals living in their state. We may finally abandon the unrealistic notion that Montana, Iowa and Alabama have much in common with Massachusetts, New York and California.

No candidate advocating strong states’ rights should even want to be president. Conversely, a candidate arguing for a strong central government should explain to those in smaller, rural states why they should be subject to the same programs as larger industrial states.

We are the United States mostly by geography, and not by similar beliefs and lifestyles.