Phantom Goals And Bright Lights: Why Government No Longer Works

Out of control federal debt, high unemployment, insecure borders and confused foreign policy are some of the key issues that our government appears to be unable or unwilling to deal with in an effective way.  Recent job approval polls give poor ratings to government officials and congress in particular.  Without getting into a politically charged discussion, the following thoughts address the situation in more basic terms.  Structural features of government and society may be major factors leading to our current problems.

In my book, “A Path To The Gold”,  I describe a rational process for arriving at high quality solutions to problems.  By following this relatively simple process various individuals and groups, including many businesses, arrive at solutions which possess  high probability of achieving designated goals.  Unfortunately, government groups rarely if ever use such decision making methods.  The reason for this is that key to the success of such a process requires that clearly stated and unambiguous goals be unanimously agreed to and remain the only goals sought after.  Here in lies the crux of the problem when it comes to government groups such as the congress or even smaller groups as sub-committees. Regardless of the seriousness of the national issue being addressed, politicians  will nearly always have hidden agenda and thus, “phantom goals”, that address their personal perceived political needs.  Their first objective, i.e. goal, is to enhance their standing with the electorate and thus, win votes for the next election.  The human drive for survival, albeit in a political sense, will almost always trump any issue related goal.  While we often hear politicians proclaim that they are acting in the best interests of the American people, you can be certain that their own personal best interests usually comes first.

Additionally, effective decision making requires that all members of the group are encouraged to participate and that all ideas are thoroughly and equally evaluated following solution-based brain storming.  More often than not in the government setting, the party in power steam rollers bills into law, frequently ignoring input from the other party.  There is rarely serious “brain storming” and thorough analysis of all ideas.  Chosen solutions are rarely reached through a fair vote of all group members. Rather than optimal solutions to national issues, goals are often reached that reflect the political objectives or ideology of the party in power.  Government resolution of issues is, at best, sub-optimal and far too often,  useless or even counterproductive.  The recent stimulus program is a classic case in point.  The $800+ billions spent to “supposedly” stimulate the economy has largely failed to do so but rather pumped large sums of tax-payer money into politically favored hands.  One of the nation’s most respected economist, Dr.Martin Feldstein  summarizes in plain, easily understood, language the mistakes made by our government in this regard (The Economy is Worse Than You Think,  Wall Street Journal 6/8/2011).

Additionally, intense and often biased media coverage has produced a highly charged, confrontational, political environment that does its best to negatively impact the lives of potential candidates it chooses to oppose.  Under these circumstances, do were really think we’re attracting the brightest and the best to public office? Look at how we’ve treated our last half dozen or so presidents.  Rather than being supported and respected by the American public, they are vilified, torn down and disrespected in a barrage of attacks led by legions of media personalities, talking heads, internet bloggers, political book writers and many others looking to profit from this destructive sport.  It’s at the point now that you have to be suspicious of the sanity of anyone expressing interest in running for political office.  Consequently, those in office and candidates for office are forced to an extremely defensive posture in order to remain viable.  Thus, goals which enhance personal career survival are first and foremost on their minds.

In conclusion, I believe  that our current government/political structure is no longer  effective.  There may need to be a wholesale change in the government construct in order to greatly lessen the political component of decision making.  High quality decision making cannot occur  in the presence of hidden agenda, “phantom goals” and the threat of constant personal attack.  Perhaps some form of term limits would be effective in bringing about an atmosphere where members of government, congress in particular, would be more focused on solving problems optimally than on protecting and promoting their own political lives.