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Perfect Storm of Bureaucratic Gridlock

From the author of Forest Gump comes one of the saddest reports I’ve read about the oil spill yet. His description of the clean-up effort is particularly dispiriting. Winston Groom writes:

“So far, the effort to contain the spill has been pathetic. Oil washes up, and after a while a truck arrives with a cleaning crew hired from distant states, who mop-up or shovel it into plastic bags that may or may not get picked up later. They then return to sit under a tent until the next call comes or, as has happened in a few cases, a sheriff arrives to arrest them on outstanding warrants. Meantime, fleets of college kids using daddy’s fishing boat are being paid up to $2,000 a day to tool around looking for oil.”

Groom says that the government’s effort to clean-up the oil “has created a perfect storm of bureaucratic and regulatory gridlock.” Read the rest here.

2 Comments

  • Derek

    Exactly. And this is why many of us commented on your blog just a few days ago that limited government conservatives were the unfair target of Dr. Moore’s attacks on NPR.

    We actually did have a government bureaucracy in place to prevent this sort of thing and it failed us. It is failing us. The bureaucrats are literally tripping over one another and pushing red tape faster than boom and boats.

    We want a leaner, more efficient bureaucracy and government. One that responds to focused and solid executive leadership.

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