Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The current administration is running into all sorts of obstacles that it didn’t have during its campaign. There are countless “stupid rules” inside government. These rules were created because at some time in the past someone cheated. Cheaters are the origin of rules and regulations.

The Obama administration has been criticized for not using Web 2.0 technologies now that it is in the White House. They used so much of these technologies during the campaign and promised to keep using them once elected. What has happened?

For one thing, the campaign had 177 staffers in this area – the White House has 10 staffers. Ooops, having one-eighteenth the staff will slow you a bit.

Simple, staff up, hire people. After all, we have spent a few trillion dollars since the election. What’s the big deal? Well, in government, staff size is limited by budget for staff (not overall budget). As I always heard, “Those are two different pots of money.” Congress has to budget for more White House staff. That takes a while.

Simple, use volunteers. There are plenty of qualified people who will volunteer a few hours a week to contribute to the Web 2.0-in-the-White-House effort. They can do it from the far-flung corners of America over the web. They know how to do that.

Well, the Federal government is limited in what it can do with volunteer not-for-pay efforts. The IT guys at the White House cannot grant access to the systems in the White House to non-employees.

This little fact startles most people.

The government cannot accept volunteers.

At one time it could, but, you know the old story:

• someone sent in volunteers
• the recipients of the volunteers gave favors back to the donors
• corruption and all that ugly stuff followed
• someone had to stop the corruption
• they passed a law or rule or regulation against volunteers

What a pity. This illustrates an old adage inside the government:

Every time you find a stupid rule, you can trace back to a time when it didn’t exist, but someone cheated, so the stupid rule was created.

So much of American government and society was created assuming that people would behave; they wouldn’t cheat or steal or take advantage of others. Every little cheat ruins the American ideal. If you see someone taking a shortcut or running through a loophole, remind them of this.