To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (275976 ) 2/22/2006 11:54:59 AM From: tejek Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1578552 Ted, Gov't is no more bloated than large corporations. I'm pretty sure a lot of corporations fit that description, but those usually aren't the successful ones. The difference, of course, is that the bloated, inefficient companies will eventually lose to competitors that run a tighter ship. Not government agencies. The only incentive to succeed is the possibility that the elected guy up top gets voted out of office, but then the bureaucracies have already adapted to survive when the next guy comes into office. Generally, large organizations tend to be less efficient and less innovative than smaller ones. INTC and AMD are a classic example of that situation. Of course, larger org. have advantages over smaller ones that offset those disadvantages. Having said, its true that gov't agencies tend to be less efficient than private ones, but that level of inefficiency IMO is highly exaggerated.There does come a point, however, when citizens start asking why these basic services aren't well-funded and well-staffed. That's when they look at the budget and wonder where all of the money is going. This is where the partisanship starts, because from here on out it all depends on what your own priorities are. CA collects a lot of revenue from taxes mainly because of the state's size, but its much more expensive to run than other states. By now, you must have noticed that lines at banks, supermarkets, etc are much longer in CA than they were in OR. Those are non gov'tal operations that to stay effective have to require their unit locations serve a much larger clientele than is typical in other states simply because of the overhead costs in CA......otherwise, they would not be cost effective. That's the same for gov't. That started when I was there........the banks and supermarkets started closing down stores and consolidating locations. It is very expensive doing business in CA....land costs, employee costs, insurance, etc are all astronomically high. Apparently, gov't started doing the same thing a few years earlier. Unless you deal with administrative overhead, you won't see these cost differentials very clearly.