Many
people, and that includes me, believe that the government is too big,
but they fear that the solution to the problem that many in Congress
will suggest will be another department, charged with the
responsibility of making it smaller. And of course that will make it
bigger. For example, the full title of the Paperwork Reduction Act
of 1995 (the PRA of 1980 apparently didn't do the trick) was “A
bill to further the goals of the Paperwork Reduction Act to have
Federal agencies become more responsible and publicly accountable for
reducing the burden of Federal paperwork on the public, and for other
purposes.” Even the
title is too long. But the real test is whether the act did its job,
to which the answer is an unequivocal “Yes and No.”
Q. Doesn't
the PRA cause more paperwork, not less?
A. For
government employees, yes. The objective of the law is to reduce the
paperwork burden on the public. The process of trying to do that adds
to government paperwork.i
So,
the real goal, notwithstanding the professed aim of all the
politicians, is not to decrease the amount of paperwork, but only
what the public sees. (That used to be called “secrecy” and was
decried. Now it's an important goal of government to “help”
everyone. Congress has gone out of its way to find a method by which
it is unnecessary for the public to read so much of what will affect
them. Perhaps the title “Paperwork Reduction Act” is misleading,
but it all sounds very noble.) How can the public not respond
positively in the next election to anyone who voted for an act with
that name.i
It's the usual disconnect between what Congress wants us all to
believe, and what is reality.ii
An
example of the results of the Paperwork Reduction Act is the
universal health care initiative passed during the previous Congress,
which, nominally, is aimed at lessening our health care costs and
providing care for all. The act was passed long after legislation to
reduce paperwork – at a time when the government should have honed
its skills at succinctness – but it is quite long and consumes a
large amount of paper. After extensive time, money, personnel, and
paper were utilized to draft legislation, Congress passed the
“Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” and the “Health
Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.” In bill form they
amounted to between 2,000 and 3,000 pages (I don't know the actual
number) but by reformatting, the bulk was reduced to 961 pages in the
printed statutes. That's 425,116 words.i
But that's only the basic framework. Implementation of the statutes
requires that the specifics be spelled out with regulations since the bills only
indicate the goals, and the regulations bring wonder to all who see
them. They amount to over 2,800,000 words.v
To bring that into perspective, “War and Peace” is about 560,000
words long – far fewer than “Remembrance of Things Past” (1.2
million words. But the statutes and associated regulations and more
than five and three quarter times the length of “War and Peace.”
vi)
It's hard to believe that all those who voted for them even read the
original bills, let alone the regulations that followed. It is
likely that the costs involved in writing and administering this
legislation will increase paperwork, the number of bureaucrats needed
to manage it, and the National Debt, while there are many questions
about the ultimate effect on health care and its costs.
That
long but necessary introduction aside, however, legislation like this
– and while these statutes are not typical in size, they are far
from unique in form – illustrates the extent of Congress's
adherence to the spirit of the Paperwork Reduction Act. It
demonstrates that the problem is far larger than we might have
imagined.
With
all of that as background then, it seems obvious that Congress is
incapable of simplifying or unwilling to undertake it voluntarily,
but legislators can only make things more complex and more costly.
Even assuming that all of our legislation were necessary and honest –
which it isn't – it can only lead to enlarging government costs.
Inevitably the debt will continue to rise, as will the burden on
those who follow us.
That's
the way our government works. We increase costs while we need the
to reduce them; we enlarge it while claiming to make the bureaucracy
smaller. Increased revenues are certainly worth seeking, but until
we lower the bills we're paying,vii
we won't be able to start on the long path to balance the budget no
matter how much we raise.
I'll
start talking about that next week.
Next
episode: “And For Other Purposes” – Too big to read and
too important to fail.
i U.
S. Department of Health and Human Services. Human Services. An
interesting choice for the responsibility to lessen paperwork and,
presumably, the size of the beaurocracy charged with producing it.
See: http://www.hhs.gov/ocio/policy/collection/infocollectfaq.html
ii Not
surprisingly, it passed unanimously in both houses of Congress.
iii More
on that subject when I discuss some aspects of legislation. For the
moment, note the “ ... and
for other purposes”
in the full title of the act.
iv It's
about ninety-two times the length of the Constitution.
v Blaise
Pascal wrote: “I
apologize that this letter is so long. I did not have the time to
make it short.” (The
quotation has been, from time to time, attributed to others but it
is generally accepted that Pascal authored it in its current form.)
In the case of Congress, however, the absence of time was not the
main motive, I fear, but there was an intentional desire to make the
legislation unreadable, especially since some of its contents might
be viewed negatively by other legislators. I suspect, as well, that
Congress has neither the will nor the ability to do so.
vi Indeed,
the United States Constitution, on which our entire system of
government is based, is under 4600 words in length. Of course that
doesn't include the signatures of the Founders or the text of
subsequent amendments. And the Declaration of Independence, by
which we became a nation, is under 1400 words.
vii In
part by shortening the bills we're passing.
