The CFO of the Municipality of Chicago was a co-host this morning on Bloomberg TV at the Morningstar Investors Conference, (I was not invited) and he brought up the Federal Government  backing Muni Paper in order to save money. 

The idea of States Rights, and other separations of governement was brought up, but he suggested those distinctions were for a different era.  I could not agree more!

Local, state and federal governements are out of control in growth.  Where the Fed's mandate state and local growth and the state mandating local  government growth.  I pointed out something like this in a previous rant where I used Thurston County Washington.  Probably about a half million people, mostly employees of a government (Olympia is the Capital) and they have a few cities:  Tumwater, Lacey, Olympia and Yelm are the largest ones.

Each city has its own police and fire departments, with county police and fire departments and then State  police also.

Now, Mason county is right next door with one "city", Shelton.  It has all the same duplications with all the same mandates and a fraction of the population.  It  just makes  you wonder what is all  the benefit  of this duplication?  Is it "Civic Pride"  I am from Thurston County, not  Mason?

As citizens it is time to evaluate how we have  government structured.  Is it serving our needs?  Do the things that need  to get done, get done in a timely and professional fashion?  Is this the most  financially efficient structure of operating and funding these esential functions?  Could we save money from consolidation of the local governemernts?

I live in Juneau, Alaska, Capital of Alaska.  It is a unified City and Borough (like a county).  Way back in 1971 in order to save money the people of the Borough of Juneau voted to consolidate its goverment operations into one.

It is time for the citizens to seriously evaluate the structure of goverment in the United States.  It is my contention we are not getting our moneys worth and with some drastic consolidation we can save the U.S. economy a substantial drag on growth and productivity.