Category Archives: Government

Here is a classic thinking question for undergraduate political science students.

If you work in a government, and that government is run by officials elected by the public, are you your own boss?  Discuss why and why not.

So, the Supreme Court offers their answer in Garcetti et al vs. Ceballos (pdf).  The press is talking about the decision as one that is "anti-whistle blower".  I would tend to agree with that assesment given the tact the Bush administration took in their briefs on the issue. However, a look at the Court's opinion is persuading me otherwise.  More later.

But, where is the line drawn between you as a public employee and you as a citizen who has a right to critique performances of those you may report to and to discuss with your voting friends what may or may not be right in government?  And, should you expect any protection from retribution by your supervising fellow voters?

Story in AJC tells how Cobb COunty schools will miss out on $250,000 in lower phone costs because an answer from a company bidding on services got "eaten" by the anti-spam software.

The real story here is how government loses money by not doing the right thing.  The procurement people knew the company, expected an answer and instead of calling the company and asking where the answer was — the bureaucrats just declared the company non-responsive.

Millions, and I mean MILLIONS, are lost by government procurement agents every year because they will not take the extra step needed to insure a good response process.

And, while laziness, no incentives to be pro-active and ignorance may contribute to this ineffectiveness in procurement of services and goods — the taxpayer bears most of the burden for this calamity.  Government employees hide behind rules in order to avoid being fodder for an investigative journalist.  Private sector employees have to do something really awful to merit news attention — public sector employees do not.

Oh yeah — the second story is that e-mail is broken.  But,that's another story

Jim Wooten’s editorial today briefly mentions “social contract” – which is one of the center principles that our Founding Fathers based this country’s governance upon.  We, all of us, need to remember it’s all about us and not so much about “me”.

Article in Massachusetts on cutting state gas taxes has a couple of factoids of interest in Georgia:

According to GasBuddy Organization Inc., which tracks retail gasoline prices, the average price in Georgia went from $3.15 a gallon for regular unleaded on Sept. 1, to about $2.56 on Sept. 20.

However, that coincided with a similar drop in neighboring Florida, where over the same time period, the price dropped from $3.01 to $2.68.

It is also important to remember that prior to Katrina, gas in Georgia was normally 10 cents cheaper than Florida, and generally cheaper than any neighboring state.  But, is has not been as cheap since.