How Government Works

The government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said someone may steal from it at night; so they created a night watchman, and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, “How does the watchman do his job without instruction?” So they created a planning division and hired two people, one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?” So they created a quality control (QC) division and hired two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, “How are these people going to get paid?” So they created a payroll division and hired two more people a time keeper and a payroll officer.

Then Congress said, “Who will be accountable for all of these people?” So they created an administrative division and hired three more people: an Admin Officer, Assistant Admin Officer and a Legal Secretary.

Then, one year later, Congress reviewed the operation of the desert scrap yard and said, “We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $22,000 over budget. We must cut back overall costs!” So they eliminated the night watchman.

Comment (borrowed from Beverly Gordon):

Just found a solution for the deficit from Warren Buffett. In a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes I’ve heard in all this drama about the debt ceiling: “I could end the deficit in 5 minutes.” “You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”