Continuing with the theme aired in video 3 in this ReasonTV series, we take a look at how tough it is to run through red tape and taxes in Cleveland vs. wide-open Houston. Houston lands tons of new businesses and jobs every year while Cleveland pretty much loses the same amount. The Cleveland bureaucracy as explained in this video pretty much reminds me of stuff I've read about the Communist bureaucracy back in the USSR. The bureaucracy, tenured, walled-in, and secure, worries only about process and itself. Furthermore, each area of the bureaucracy (taxation, zoning, public works, etc.) is its own little fiefdom, with each bureaucrat more concerned with his or her own career rather than in helping people establish businesses and live their lives freely and productively. The bureaucracy becomes an end unto itself.
This is one of the many things that make me hostile to the notion of public employee unions. They, and their bureaucracies, run by local politicians elected for life, lost sight of the fact that they are PUBLIC employees. The PUBLIC employs them, not the other way around. Hence, that's why they are, or used to be, called PUBLIC SERVANTS. Somehow, this has been lost on bureaucrats, political appointees, public employee unions, and, of course, the elected-officials-for-life themselves. This video offers a glimpse of why this is and why it doesn't have to be.
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