Opinion: In Government, You Fail Up

(July 23) -- Want to know why the federal government often seems so inept? Maybe it's because the one sure-fire way to get a bigger budget for your agency is to fail spectacularly.

Consider this revealing story, buried at the end of the part one of The Washington Post's massive investigative series this week on the post 9/11 national security system.

The story tells what happened after the government managed to let Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with a bomb last Christmas.

Did heads roll? People get fired? Not exactly. Instead, National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter put in a request for more analysts, and the Department of Homeland Security asked for more air marshals, more body scanners and also more analysts. As the Post reports, they'll likely get their wishes.

In government, it seems, agencies only fail up.

Take a look at just a few other examples.

FEMA

There were few government failures as dramatic as the Federal Emergency Management Administration's in the immediate wake of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. But what happened to FEMA?

Its punishment was to see its budget explode.

From 1993 until 2005, FEMA's budget averaged about $3.4 billion. In 2006, it nearly doubled, to $6.1 billion. Last year, FEMA got $7 billion, and President Barack Obama wants that to climb to $7.3 billion next year, according to various budget documents.

Army Corps of Engineers

Likewise, the Army Corps of Engineers came in for its share of blame for the Katrina disaster. As a federal court ruled in November, the Corps' many failures led to catastrophic flooding in New Orleans.

And, like FEMA, the Corps it saw its budget skyrocket as a result of its disastrous performance, going from $4.8 billion in 2004 to $6.9 billion in 2006 -- a 43 percent increase. It's still in the range of $6 billion plus.

Securities and Exchange Commission

After energy giant Enron's stunning collapse in 2001, blame eventually came around to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with overseeing publicly traded companies and protecting investors from just the kind of fraud Enron was engaged in.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, for example, blasted the commission, pointing to "systemic and catastrophic failure -- a failure of all the watchdogs to properly discharge their appointed responsibilities."

And, true to form, the SEC saw itself handsomely rewarded for failure -- with its budget climbing from $370 million in 2000 to more than $619 million by 2003.

Apparently having learned its lesson, the SEC fell down on the job again, helping usher in the financial meltdown that caused the country's deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., lambasted the SEC in 2008, saying: "Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch."

Today as a result, the SEC is now resting comfortably on a $960 million budget.

Homeland Security

Of course, the biggest and deadliest government failure of all was to let terrorists aboard three airlines and kill more than 3,000 innocent civilians in 2001. And the result has been a massive amount of money thrown at all the organizations that didn't do their jobs in the first place.

Spending on homeland security went from $17.6 billion the year of the 9/11 attacks to $32 billion the year after. In 2011, Obama wants to spend $54.7 billion protecting the homeland. For those math challenged, that's a 211 percent increase from the pre-9/11 days.

Sure, it stands to reason that in some of these cases the failures could have been caused by lack of resources -- not enough money for people and things.

But even so, just try to imagine if the rest of the world operated this way.

"Mom, dad, I crashed the Chevy last night."

"Oh my gosh, son! What you need is a Mercedes! I'm sure with more engine power, improved handling and luxury appointments you will be able to avoid accidents in the future!"

Or ...

"My company is losing money hand over fist because we're making crappy, overpriced products that customers don't want to buy."

"I see. What you need is billions of dollars in bailout money."

Oh, wait ... we just did that last thing with GM and Chrysler.

How about if, instead of throwing good money after bad, we tried this approach next time a government agency completely fails at its main job: cut the budget, cut the workforce and bring in new leaders who tell the remaining employees that they'll get the same, but good, if they ever screw up like that again.

Maybe then taxpayers will start to regain trust in the competence of their government.