We're From the Government...

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" - Ronald Reagan

Yes, even thirty years ago people approached a government created solution with trepidation. It seems that at best the government is capable of creating a program that will require borrowing trillions from future generations to fund or at worse create a DMV style system that still fails to accomplish the task a newly developed department or agency was created for and charged with doing. I wanted to review some of the more spectacular failures and backfires of the government in this article and in a later post we'll start trying to see if a trend emerges.

1. Cracking down on Hackers

Increasing demonizing of hackers, for example by trying to add an extra layer of punishment on other crimes if they were done "on a computer." High-profile victims of this approach include Bradley Manning, Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond, Barrett Brown and of course Edward Snowden.

Attempt to intimidate an entire community in case anyone there might use computers to embarrass the US government or reveal its wrongdoings is now starting to backfire: The U.S. government's efforts to recruit talented hackers could suffer from the recent revelations about its vast domestic surveillance programs, as many private researchers express disillusionment with the National Security Agency.

Recently, Gen. Keith Alexander of the NSA has claimed that the next great threat against America is a cyber attack, for which he is developing armies of hackers to build not only a national defense against, but also an assault army for. This creates a clash of needs from discouraging hackers and trying to hire them.

In the end, the government tries to cover up how it fights wars at the expense of risking it's effectiveness of fighting wars in the future.

2. Prohibition

For thirteen years, beginning in 1920, the sale of alcohol was banned in the United States. The desire was as potent as 100 proof whiskey hat it passed as a constitutional amendment and was ratified in January of 1920, prohibition went into effect and began what would come to be described as "the bleakest time in American history" by that elderly, alcoholic relative we all have.

Without the evils of alcohol abuse, it was hoped that everything from unemployment to domestic violence would decrease dramatically. People would be free to focus their energy on other things like church, work, finances and raising their kids.

A score of gangster wars fighting over illegal distribution channels, a speakeasy in every town, and another constitutional amendment summarizes this era in American history as the ultimate failure to change American's social habits.

3. Strategic Hamlet Program

All Asians look alike to us, and that politically incorrect and inconvenient truth was never more prevalent then during the Vietnam War were frequently the regular farm folk who we were trying to liberate in South Vietnam, and the commie bad guys we were fighting, were often the same guys. The plan was to place residents in isolated and gated communities under the protection of foreigners armed to the teeth and resentful for being forcibly halfway across the planet from their families, or 'Hamlets' and keep them there until they love us and resent those who would want to do us harm.

In the end, the program somehow led to a decrease in support for the South Vietnam Diem’s regime and an increase in sympathy for the North Vietnamese Communist efforts.

4. Medicaid

The popular program that was designed to not leave anyone behind in the health insurance industry simply because of their inability to pay, sound familiar?

But it was soon realized that basic care wasn't going to cut it. When the Medicaid program’s special hospitals subsidy was added in 1987, it was supposed to cost $100 million annually, but wound up costing $11 billion annually within five years, and Medicaid spending is set to double over the next 10 years from $253 billion in 2012 to $593 billion in 2022. 

Both Medicare and Medicade are exceeding the CPI and inflation, usually doubling it, meaning that this program continues to eat a continuously larger piece of that pie we like to call our wealth. The hope being that at some point here the nation will level out it's expanding healthcare costs, either through government imposed efficiency or scientists developing a pill that cures everything for $5. One of those is more realistic then the other.

5. Green Jobs Initiative

Half a billion dollars of the infamous stimulus plan of 2009 was earmarked to inject some life into the Green Jobs industry. Part of the Obama green energy program had the goal was to train 124,893 people, and place 79,854 (64%) in new green jobs. Two years in, the results of the green jobs program indicate that only 52,762 were trained, and only 8,035 got green jobs.

What does that math come out to? Each job costs tax payers about $62,000, more then the average wage for those jobs. President Obama’s first re-election campaign ad boasts of 2.7 million green energy jobs. But, nothing in the Departments of Energy, Labor or Commerce justifies such job claims. It was concluded that the vast majority of those jobs where either very loosely associated with 'green' industries, or existed prior to the 2008 election.

Of course this is just a smattering of countless other programs; No Child Left Behind (lots of money spent, no real results), Banning DDT (Malaria outbreak in Africa in the wake of banning this malaria killing chemical), The War on Drugs (Trillions spent, drugs are winning), Social Security (Currently running on IOU's.). One could go on and on, but what I'll dive into in part 2 is topics of who gets hurt when government programs go bad, what we learn from them, and what can be done before we leap into another 'fix' program.