I’ve never been susceptible to the claim that you solve problems with taxpayer money. Indeed, this amusing poster is a pretty good summary of my views on the effectiveness of government spending. But what about the horrific stories about veterans dying because of secret waiting lists and bureaucratic skullduggery at the Veterans Administration? I want to take […]

While I’m obviously not a fan of big government, I have mixed feelings about why the public sector is so blindly wasteful. Is it because politicians and bureaucrats are well-intentioned morons who accidentally do damage (as illustrated by this cartoon), or is it that they are venal vultures looking to grab as much loot as […]

Alex Tabarrok has a fascinating article in the Wilson Quarterly about the history of bail bondsmen and their role in this privatized segment of the criminal justice system. Let’s start by excerpting some history of the system. Bail began in medieval England as a progressive measure to help defendants get out of jail while they […]

Here’s another remarkable story illustrating the incompetence of government. A bureaucrat in Norfolk, VA, got paid for 12 years (including benefits) without ever showing up for work. Depending on the agency, this may actually have been a good thing (I wish IRS bureaucrats did this), but it certainly shows how taxpayer money gets wasted when […]

I take second place to nobody in my view that government is horribly incompetent, but even I’m shocked by this story linked on Drudge. According to a news report out of Indiana, students who take the government’s driver’s ed class are four times more likely to crash than those who don’t take the classes. There […]