This blog is about the major fiscal and economic problems of our country and specifically our stagnant economy (2% real growth for the past six years) and massive federal debt (the public debt, on which we pay interest, is 74% of GDP, the highest since WWII). My major sources of information are the New York Times and Wall Street Journal but I also make use of reports from various think tanks. Today’s source is the recent report, “Why the Federal Government Fails,” by the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards.
According to Mr. Edwards, there are five main reasons for this:

• Top-Down Coercion. Federal agencies impose more than 3,000 regulations each year. Total regulations now span 168,000 pages. Benefits are distributed through more than 2,300 programs. Federal policies are often based on guesswork. Failed policies are seldom weeded out because they are funded by taxes and are not contingent on performance.
• Lack of Knowledge. Private markets operate efficiently on the basis of price information. Government subsidies and regulations throw a monkey wrench into the price mechanism.
• Political Incentives. Congress focuses on the benefits of programs but does not consider the full costs because benefits are delivered to narrow groups while the costs are spread widely. There are too many fiscal illusions to hide costs such as: paying with debt rather than higher taxes, taxing businesses which then just raise prices, conferring benefits by regulation (e.g. requiring employers to provide healthcare) rather than direct subsidy.
• Bureaucratic Incentives. There are too many rewards for inertia and not enough for the creation of value such as the absence of profits and losses, rigid compensation, lack of firing, red tape, agency capture, etc.
• Hugh Size and Scope. The $4 trillion annual budget is 100 times the average state budget of $40 billion. It is simply too vast for members of Congress, and other top officials, to understand what is going on. The more programs the government has, the more likely they will work at cross-purposes.

Mr. Edwards concludes that “the most important way to improve federal performance would be to greatly cut the government’s size” and to do this by shifting federal activities back to the states. With this recommendation I heartily agree!