Million Man (Snow) March

DC was some interesting last week. Covered in snow, food shortages, a city utterly incapable of maintaining services from snow removal to public transit. Government ineptitude was on display as like Hurricane Katrina but without the same level of drama and a Republican President to blame.

But what strikes me the most is not Mayor Fenty's inefficiency or total lack of planning. No, it was the 4 days of federal government closure.

Two million people did not work for four days. That's 64 million manhours of unrealized work, of non-productivity. And no one noticed. Satellites orbited the earth. Planes stayed in the sky. China did not invade, Russia did not have it's Red Dawn moment.

So the question: what do these people do all day? If the entire federal government bureaucracy was M.I.A. for four consecutive days and nothing changed at all- well I think it goes without saying that a level of superfluousness exists.

We are $1.7 trillion over budget this year. I know a place to make some cuts. Recently an audit of the Transportation Department stated that over 1600 people make over $170,000. Wow. Just think of that- 1600+ people who do not produce, manufacture, sell, create or market anything. They regulate your life. And that's Transportation.

Wouldn't you love to see audits of Labor and Energy and Commerce and State and Interior and Agriculture and Treasury and EPA and FTC and SEC and FEC and Defense and CIA and FBI and Education... want me to go on?

And all these people, these 6-figure regulators stayed home for 4 days because of the snow. You didn't notice, did you? Yeah, me neither.

But I did notice when I got my paycheck.

Hope you enjoyed the vacation, federal workers. Your welcome.