The Toughest Creature To Kill...

The Trump administration is reportedly “preparing a major rollback of federal requirements for Head Start.” Long-time readers may recall my repeated harangues regarding that decades-long money pit, so I was pleased to read the next part: “a change that supporters of the child care program fear could gut its longstanding antipoverty mission.”

The tone of the quotes is a tell-tale. Yes, it’s from the New York Times.

Head Start has been known to provide no measurable benefit, despite six decades of effort and expenditure. There’s no measured difference between Head Start kids and non-Head Start kids by the time they get to the fourth grade. This has been known for decades, but the program continues to get funded - and has seen its funding increase.

Why?

Because intentions matter far more than results.

Check that. A look at history tells us that the importance of results is so far down the list of priorities to render it negligible. Results - actual, measured results - don’t matter at all, other than their lack being used as an excuse to do more of the same. Public schools fail to educate kids? Spend more money on the same system that hasn’t worked. Never say “maybe we are doing it wrong.”

Know what’s more important than results? A program’s name. Akin to judging books by their covers, people judge programs by their names, even when those names have nothing to do with the bill’s contents. The Inflation Reduction Act was just an excuse to spend money. Money the government didn’t have, ensuring the persistence of inflation. Sure, there was much sophistry about the mechanisms by which this spending would reduce inflation, but let’s be honest, politicians only care about inflation when it hurts their electoral prospects, and even then they only pay it lip service while continuing to spend.

The persistence of government programs is inevitable. The people with the greatest stake in a failing program are those whose livelihoods depend on its continuation. Taxpayers - the people whose money is being spent pointlessly - have so many things to look at and voice complaints about that any one program simply doesn’t get enough pushback.

This is why there is truth in the notion that the toughest creature to kill is an ongoing federal program.

The nearest earthly approach to immortality is a bureau of the federal government. -- Senator James F. Byrnes, 1933.

A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth. -- Ronald Reagan, 1964.

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. -- Milton Friedman, 1984.

It is, of course, the voters’ fault. Any attempt to cut elicits squawks from supposed fiscal conservatives who don’t want to see their spending priorities touched. They only ever want stuff they don’t care about pared back. Moreso, if a cut is imperfect, if there is one anecdote about ill effects, they get high and mighty and demand more prudence... and less cutting.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei waved a chainsaw around during his campaign, signaling his intent to make real and deep cuts. Later, he gave one to Elon Musk, who headed up the DOGE effort.

Chainsaws are crude tools. A skilled wielder can do some cool things with one, but no one will ever mistake one for a scalpel. This creates opportunity for those who resist spending cuts, even though no sane person can honestly believe the US can continue on this arc of deficit spending. The people who want to see spending unabated have few compunctions about exaggerating, repeating farcical claims, or outright lying.

When they do so, they tell the rest of us that they care more than we do, that they are better people than we are. They deny it when called out, but the sentiment remains. These are the people who turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the slow-rolling disaster of endless borrowing and ever-growing national debt. They deserve contempt, not consideration.

Keep all this in mind the next time someone preaches doom should a government program face cutbacks or termination.