There is increasing difficulty competently creating and administering any government program as its size and scope increases. When the Federal government decides it can micromanage one sixth of the American economy, as it did in ACA, that simply can’t be done competently. Think of VA healthcare for all. Yet the Federal government keeps trying to take more and more control from the states and the people.

The problem is not limited to one of size, but also to the nature of the bureaucracy upon which programs depend. The bureaucrats are permanently situated and the programs will fall to them, regardless of their fitness for the job. They can’t be fired; they can’t be reassembled to better fit the need; we can’t get rid of those employees who are no longer needed to make room for those we do need for the future. Many have been in their jobs for decades; they just don’t fit with every new major program that comes along, but they’ll be the ones doing it.

Moreover, bureaucrats have their own agendas and opinions. They can (and do) scuttle anything they disagree with. They have their fiefdoms to protect, their powers to expand. The bigger bureaucracies get, the less competent they become. And they are never held accountable for failures. Their bonuses are paid regardless.

It’s long past time that the Federal government finally admit that it can’t micromanage the economy and our lives. Monster laws that try to dictate minutiae, like Dodd-Frank and ACA, create new problems worse than the old. Far better that Congress establish broad standards and goals, and let the states execute.