 The Corporate Invasion of the Church
The Vision
Unless otherwise noted, |
I'm not one for television, but I like a good chuckle as much as the next guy. And television is often good for a laugh, if you know where to look. I turned on C-Span the other day, and was not disappointed. C-Span is a network dedicated to covering issues of public policy import, like conferences for think tanks and policy wonks. But for the really good stuff wait for the Congressional hearings they sometimes cover. Here is what I saw. Several higher ups from the Internal Revenue Service were appearing before some sort of Congressional subcommittee. Unfortunately it wasn't what it should have been, a modern Nuremburg. Instead they played it for laughs, managing to create a specter that brought to mind both Orwell and Huxley. They were practicing double plus good newspeak. You see they were talking about the need for the IRS to practice better "customer service." Such reminded me of the IRS' partners in crime, the Federal Reserve. Just as the Federal Reserve is not federal and has no reserves, so the IRS has no customers and provides no service. A customer is someone who chooses to avail himself or herself of a particular product or service. The key word is choice. Without choice the better term is victim. A service is typically understood as some activity performed for my benefit. What the IRS does is take things from me. Now there is, believe it or not, a service built around taking things. There is a company here that I pay every month to take from me. They take my garbage. The IRS, on the hand, takes things I want to keep, Federal Reserve notes. This is the "service" they provide. Asking them to improve their customer service is like asking your local shake-down artist to please be more prompt when he comes to collect his "protection money." Congress, it seems, wants the IRS to adopt a business mentality in going about its business. It is asking for a more sleek, efficient operation. My preference, rather a corporate model, is the body model they currently use. And the body they are modeled after is that of Dr. Frankenstein's monster. Mad scientists in Washington created it. The IRS operates on stolen pounds of flesh. They cost an arm and a leg. And the result is a plodding, clumsy, destructive, drooling beast. Far better to face that than a well oiled stealing machine. When you are the mouse the last thing you want is a better mousetrap. The IRS very solemnly promised the good doctor, the Congress, that they would try to do better. I watched one bureaucrat note that they are making great progress. Last year three fourths of those who called their customer service line were actually given help. A great leap forward from the previous year when only fifty percent got help. The problem with the IRS, as with the government as a whole, is not that they are inefficient, though they are. The problem of the budget, the deficit, the debt cannot be eliminated by taking out the "waste." The problem is not how they do what they do, but that they do what they do. Suppose, for instance, that governments could magically identify every penny of waste in the administration of welfare programs, and eliminate them. What would you be left with? Only millions of farmers, corporations, colleges and universities, college and university students, sick people, old people, home buyers, "artists", mayors and governors, subway riders, scientists, teachers, and policemen all on the public dole, all living off subsidies from Uncle Sam. Making a better trough to reduce spillage doesn't change how many people feed there. Here the government looks like a corporation, trading favors for votes. The reality however, is that it is more like a god, trading grace for absolute power, authority and devotion. Don't kiss the beast. |
