Tuesday we in California will get to vote on a number of initiatives. Two among them are particularly hotly contested. Proposition 86 would add heavily to the tax on cigarettes; the new state income would be passed through to, among others, hospitals that have to treat the results of nicotine addiction (e.g. heart disease, lung cancer and emphysema) and programs to treat nicotine addiction. Proposition 87 would impose a severance tax on oil companies for oil extracted in California, would ban them from passing on this tax to end-users in the form of higher gasoline prices, and would use the money in the search for alternate energy sources (solar, wind, the like).
As you may suppose, the opposition to Proposition 86 is primarily funded by tobacco companies and that to Proposition 87 by Big Oil (most notably California-based Chevron).
One of the more interesting counterarguments to these initiatives is that they would mandate the installation of new bureaucracies in state government. Horrible! As we've known for many years, bureaucracy is a recipe for disaster. Or ... is it?
Do you know what the difference is between having a bureaucracy and not having a bureaucracy?
If you have a bureaucracy in place and you need help from the government, you dial them and they put you on hold for twenty minutes, with Muzak playing the background, while they finish their lunch or their card game or their discussion about who is dating whom tonight. Eventually they will get back to you, about the time you've worn out your teeth by grinding them together.
If you don't have a bureaucracy in place and you need help from the government, you dial them ... and nobody answers. Nobody will ever, ever answer.
Which of these would you prefer?