Our Government Is Absolutely Brilliant at Managing Things. I Hope.
28th July 2026
In an effort to gain the financial support of a public sector union before an election, Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education in 1979. Its first year in operation was 1980, when it had a budget of $14 billion (a little over $50 billion in today’s dollars). That $14 billion in taxpayer dollars was enough to get him significant campaign contributions from teachers’ unions. So it was a successful policy, politically. Although he still lost the election. Oh well. Still, $14 billion is a lot of money. Today the Dept of Education’s budget is around $260 billion. That is absolutely remarkable growth. The Dept of Education is doing better than nearly any company in the private sector.
The one major accomplishment of Joe Biden was to bump Jimmy Carter into being only the second worst President ever.
If you look at the list of Fortune 500 companies from 1979, 40% of them no longer exist. Only around 14% of those companies are still on the Fortune 500 list today. The Dept of Education has grown exponentially over this time, but only 3% of 1979’s Fortune 500 companies have moved up that list since that year.
Which means one of two things:
1) Perhaps our government is much, MUCH better at managing things than private companies.
2) Perhaps we have a very serious problem.Tough call. What do you think? Hard to say.
But I think we may have a very serious problem…
I’m told that Ronald Reagan used to say that the closest we’ll ever come to eternal life on this earth is a government program.