On 4/2/04 1:49 PM, "Anderson, Mark (GE Infrastructure)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mark Snyder seems to be making an assumption that I think is widely prevalent, > although usually unstated. Namely that government workers have the best > interests of the populace at heart, but private enterprise folks care only for > themselves. The advocates of this point of view continually gripe about > politicians for whom this isn't the case (the ones they disagree with), yet > their arguments seem to assume that the self-sacrificing politician is the way > things are supposed to be. > > Dream on, utopians. Just because someone is able to get elected means nothing > about their level of ethics. In all my interactions with those who work in > business and those in government, I haven't noticed higher ethics in > government types. How many politicians would sacrifice their careers for the > betterment of others? About the same tiny number of business people that > would do the same, I imagine. For sure, different people are attracted to the > public life of politics from those that prefer the more private life in > business. But those that enjoy politics aren't better people. Mark Snyder > assumes that politicians whose main motivations are to get re-elected are > exceptions to the rule, but he's dead wrong. Any elected official has that as > their highest priority, or they wouldn't have been elected in the first place.
Obviously, I disagree with the assertion that I've made errors. I think the difference between my position and Mr. Anderson's may actually lie more with the idea to Mark Anderson appears to have that government = elected officials/politicians. That's obviously not true. I'm a government worker and I certainly wasn't elected to my position. Those of us who work in government or who follow government actions closely know that while decisions are made by elected officials, the real work is done by department and agency staffs, who both guide the decisions made by elected officials and then carry them out. And those are the folks who I believe are doing a great deal of sacrificing to help humanity. And I'm not just saying that because I think I'm underpaid. For example, one of my co-workers is a civil engineer who has been working for the state on things like landfill capacity and design, along with other solid waste issues since 1969. I often kid him about the fact that he's been a government mule for longer than I've been alive. By this point, he's compensated pretty well for his work, but he could have easily left state service for a much bigger paycheck a decade or two ago if that was his sole motivation because he's damned good at his job. And as for the notion that nobody in government would sacrifice their career for the betterment of others, I would beg to differ. My position in state government is funded through an industry fee program based on toxic chemical releases. My job is to help industries find ways to reduce these releases and prevent pollution. In other words, if I do my job well enough, eventually there would no longer be funding available for it and it would no longer be necessary. That doesn't stop me from doing my job and doing it well. The same is true for a number of state agency who work in environmental protection. >From a personal interest standpoint, I suppose it's a good thing there's a bunch of shortsighted corporations in Minnesota who continue to pollute a lot so I can keep paying my mortgage on time... > Back to the bus system. Since in the real World, we can't count on anyone to > sacrifice themselves to help humanity, we need to have the right incentives in > place to induce people to do the right thing. Right now the > governor-appointed Met Council runs the system, so the governor is ultimately > in charge. So the incentive to run a good system is that it'll help the > governor be re-elected. As we've seen, that ain't much of an incentive. And > even if we had a DFL governor (or God forbid, a Green governor), beholden to > Labor and mass transit advocates, the bus system is only one small piece of > the governor's portfolio. So it wouldn't have a whole lot of effect on > his/her re-election chances. Oh, right. God forbid we should have a governor who actually works on behalf of the people instead of the one who simply sits back and ignores all those being hurt now. > One way to give the Met Council more incentive to run a good mass transit > system is to make it an elective body, selected by the residents of the metro > area. But we already have so many confusing jurisdictions now that the > downside would be adding to the ballot confusion. So such an electoral change > might not help. > > And even an elected Met Council would be looking to the voters and political > parties to be re-elected, of which the bus riders are just a small subset. > Wouldn't a better solution be someone who's accountable just to the actual > people that use the system? Of course I mean a private firm, which would live > or die based on whether people rode their buses. The firm would also > presumably get revenue from the Met Council as bonuses for the unprofitable > routes, but I would hope we'd set the bonuses low enough so that the company > couldn't survive just on them. Top management would be focused on getting > more ridership, and they'd be hurt bad from a strike like we've got now. I agree that making Met Council an elected body is worth considering. While I share the concern of ballot confusion, I guess that is of lesser concern to me than the complete lack of accountability Met Council has now. To say that Annette Meeks is representing the interests of Minneapolis residents would be a complete joke. Allowing for an elected body would effectively accomplish the same thing Mr. Anderson proposes a private firm for. It would put the onus on "top management" (in other words, the elected officials) to deliver good services and attract more ridership. And it would maintain accountability with the residents, something that as far as I can tell, privatization would not do if everything else is kept the same. We'd still have the same problems of decisions being made by a body that is not held accountable by the voters. Finally, I couldn't help but notice that Mr. Anderson didn't say anything to refute my position that private enterprise folks care only for themselves. So it would seem he's arguing that rather than continue to keep our bus service under the control of folks who we're concerned may be acting solely out of self-interest, we should just turn it over to the folks for whom we know that to be the case. Hmm...I'm having trouble following the logic there. Can someone help me? Mark Snyder Windom Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 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