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To the Editor:

All organizations, from small private business to giant corporations or government agencies can always be more effective and efficient. Improperly maintained, obsolete or broken equipment can be a major stumbling block. Slack employees who have lost focus or interest are always there. Obsolete goals or outdated procedures may need to be updated or reconfigured.

Government agencies exist to serve the people. Costs are controlled to a greater or lesser degree. But the profit motive is not a factor.

Businesses and corporations exist to sell their products and/or services. Again, costs are controlled to a greater or lesser degree. But the profit motive is a key consideration. If a business cannot make a profit, it can’t continue to exist.

We are currently conflating these two separate and distinct motivations. And that misconception is wreaking havoc.

When a government agency takes care of a problem and prevents a possible tragedy, nothing happens. A family is not crushed in their car by a falling dead tree that was already removed. A major thoroughfare doesn’t flood because a five-barrel box culvert was cleaned out and kept clear. Vehicles are not in multiple pile ups on salt treated roads that are no longer icy. A plane does not crash into another plane because alert air traffic controllers kept them separated. An unknown disease does not become a pandemic because government scientists worldwide cooperated to stop it. A bloody insurrection never occurred because starving people received food.

It’s virtually impossible to prove a negative. How can anyone prove something didn’t happen because of action taken by an individual, business or government agency? It never happened! But because something terrible never occurred, people start thinking government agencies are not necessary.

Soon some officials will brag about how many billions of dollars they saved. They will fail to mention the costs and losses.

We will moan over future events and ask, “How in the World did this happen?” Altering, cutting or eliminating government agencies with a chainsaw guarantees what is coming.

John Chiles

Southern Shores

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