From cnn.com Reason Magazine Editor Matt Welch with today's reminder of the inevitability of government spending waste:
The lesson of government waste, whether on $16 muffins or $535 million loan guarantees to solar power companies or $48 billion in "improper" Medicare payments, is one worth relearning every day.
Managers whose budgets do not depend on customer satisfaction and who do not face competitive pressure in the marketplace, will not, on balance, spend their money wisely. Vendors selling to those managers know that price matters much less than it does to, say, Wal-Mart. And anywhere there is political urgency and official involvement high up the command chain, conditions will begin resembling a gold rush.
They can't help it, in other words. It's the nature of the beast, which is why some of us talk about "taming the beast." Read the whole thing.
