Cut the Government!

"Cut the Government!" That seems the current battle cry for everyone, along with the claim that doing so will "fix" everything. It sounds good, nice and clean, the kind of bumper sticker politics that passes as policy in our country. In addition it is something everyone seems to agree on; that excessive regulations are killing the country. I make my living in the aviation industry and will certainly admit that we suffer our share of "excessive regulations." I can't say that they have killed anything though. In fact it seems to me that, should the cost of complying with one regulation or the other actually increase the cost of doing business, that cost will be passed along to the customer just like every other cost. Anyway...

We flew into an Indianapolis airport the other night. It was a typical early winter flight, low visibilities all day, mist and fog, instrument approaches everywhere we went, and bumpy clouds all sporting a little ice. Working our way toward the final approach course Air Traffic Control (ATC) asked us to reduce to our slowest possible speed. It seems they had an emergency situation unfolding and someone needed to get on the ground ahead in a serious way. To make room we climbed up out of the worst of the ice and motored around for 15 minutes while the problem was resolved.

A small, single engine airplane had taken off from somewhere to somewhere, stumbled into the icing conditions, and was quickly overwhelmed by the deteriorating situation. The pilot in command kept his shit together, (no mean feat with ice encrusting your airplane on a dark and stormy night) and aborted to the same airport that was our destination. Declaring an emergency ensured that he got all of the help he needed. No harm, no foul, well done.

We landed a few minutes later, dropped off a passenger of our own, and went inside to order a little gas so we could make our last jump to home base. One of the endless, 24-hour a day news programs was playing inside the business aviation terminal, (as there always seems to be). The passengers from the emergency airplane were also inside waiting for a cab. The T.V. mentioned a speech made that day by Obama, where he outlined some program to try and stimulate job creation.

"Great," one of the passengers grumbled, "another government program when we need to cut the government."

I found myself a bit mystified by that statement. The ATC system in the US is a massive government program; some $1,865,000,0000 worth of it this year. It makes use of the combined efforts of tens of thousands of some of the world's top experts; controllers, inspections, engineers, pilots, maintenance inspectors, accident investigators, weather forecasters; an endless list. Before that airplane ever departed the government insured that the pilot was trained and current, the aircraft was properly designed and built, that there was an airport for it to depart from and another to arrive at, that the navigation satellites were in orbit and working properly, and that the instrument landing system (ILS) was calibrated properly to allow a pilot to find the end of a desperately needed runway on a dark and icy night. When the grumbler's pilot declared an emergency, literally millions of dollars of assets where put into play to get himself, his airplane and his passengers safely back on the ground.

I wonder which parts of that particular government program he would like to see cut?

People always seem to be for cutting the parts of the government that don't seem to be helping them at that particular moment; like I said, bumper sticker politics. Those on the right really should stop talking as if every single penny that the government spends is a wasted penny. There are a lot of wasted pennies for sure, but far less than half of the pennies that are spent; likely less than a quarter of the pennies spent; and possibly less than 10% of the pennies are wasted, (particularly if it is assumed that no military / security penny has ever been wasted - a budget which accounts for about half of all the pennies.)

Those on the left have to stop talking as if there is an endless supply of pennies that they can throw at every harebrained idea that comes down the pike.

The smart bet is that neither side is likely to fess up to the idiocy of its rhetoric. (Any more than the grumbling passenger mentioned above is ever likely to admit that a massive government bureaucracy saved his ass on pitch black night of ugly flying.) Since each party is bent on committing social suicide before admitting to uttering idiocy, it seems pretty clear that all of the pennies will soon dry up and nothing that makes for a first world society is going to get done.

Until something new rises in its place.

Which is something my grand kids will not see, and maybe not my great-grand kids. (Or yours.) But that's what happens when a whole society loses its mind and utters nothing but idiocy.