How to reduce government spending at a stroke

I saw this over at Burningourmoney and read it through. I encourage you to click on this link and read it yourself
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2004&month=04

Then tell me that government spending can't be reined in. I've been in despair for such a long time about how this country is being systematically strangled whilst being simultaeneously raped and looted.
How can we kill the beast that sucks the very life out of the country?
The petty regulations that prevent jobs being created, that stifle creativity and enterprise, that make it easier to stay and home rather than earn self respect as well as money?

I didn't know the answer. But now I have read something that shows us the way.
It's so simple that it just needed spelling out.
The very principles that enabled business to adapt and change over the last thirty years just need to be applied.
Why does the government do the things it does?
Has anyone ever asked that question?
If the answer is "because we've always done it", then it's time to take a long hard look.
I recall a story about an ordinary business. An ordinary worker used to file certain documents. She'd done it for years. She'd been told to do it on her first day at work. No-one asked her what happened to the documents once they'd been filed.
Had anyone ever asked for them? No.
Had anyone ever looked at them? No.
Had anyone ever gone through the files and thrown them away? No.

She did the same meaningless task day in, day out, because no-one ever told her not to. It filled up her day, but it was meaningless, futile, unproductive and expensive. So why do it?

Apply that to government. Can you now see where to start cutting?
It all starts with a simple one word question- "Why?"

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite-

"What about regulations? The regulatory power is customarily delegated to non-elected officials who then constrain the people’s liberties with little or no accountability. These regulations are extremely difficult to eliminate once they are in place. But we found a way: We simply rewrote the statutes on which they were based. For instance, we rewrote the environmental laws, transforming them into the Resource Management Act—reducing a law that was 25 inches thick to 348 pages. We rewrote the tax code, all of the farm acts, and the occupational safety and health acts. To do this, we brought our brightest brains together and told them to pretend that there was no pre-existing law and that they should create for us the best possible environment for industry to thrive. We then marketed it in terms of what it would save in taxes. These new laws, in effect, repealed the old, which meant that all existing regulations died—the whole lot, every single one.

You see? There is hope.

It's a lottery

About fifteen years ago I was involved in a local Community Transport scheme. Some well meaning individual from the local Volunteer Bureau had written to a TV charity and was given a Transit minibus, which came with strings attached. It had to have a management committee and a business plan, and I somehow found myself co-opted on to the committee as chairman.
We found someone who was willing to work on the day to day organisation and we soon came up against the problem of funding. Everyone thinks that having a community minibus is a great idea, but won't pay the true cost when hiring it.
We looked around for funding and our co-ordinator contacted the National Lottery. We received a pack the size of a telephone directory.


One thing soon became clear.
Grants are not given out according to need, but are granted according to one's ability to fill in the paperwork correctly. This I believe to be a universal truth.


I've been off work since last Autumn. I'm having treatment for CLL, a form of Leukaemia. I'm still employed but my firm have now stopped paying SSP, so I had to look for some benefits somewhere.
I'm not going to bore you about the phone calls, answering a questionnaire over the phone, getting a copy in the post and sending it to the local Benefit Office (Which is in Wellingborough, but the post goes to Birmingham and no, I don't understand why either).
After I'd sent my certificate and paperwork to Birmingham I received another letter asking for more paperwork. Another week went by when I received yet another letter containing a questionnaire.
I hate questionnaires. Which is why I spoke to someone in Natalie in Paisley when I first heard I wasn't getting SSP any more.
This time the questionnaire is about whether I need to go and have an assessment. Based on this box ticking, I may or may not receive benefits. I finally managed to fill it in without getting too stressed.
The post arrived as I finished filling in this booklet. I have a letter telling me that they will be paying me £65 a week.
But I may still have to go for an assessment.


Why is everything so complicated? Why the duplication of effort? Why is everything dependent on one's ability to fill in forms?



Benefits are not given out according to need, but are granted according to one's ability to fill in the paperwork correctly. This I believe to be a universal truth.
It really is a lottery