Government Accountability

It's an election year and much is going to be said about voting. It is EXTREMELY important that you vote in every election that you can. This is the way that you can make the most impact on what happens in your government. This national election will decide philosophy on taxation, entitlement, and government regulation. It tells our elected officials what the people are thinking about how government affects them.

That being said, now the question comes, how do we affect those who aren't elected? For most of us, our interaction with the government (aside from checks to the IRS), is on the local level. This interaction comes in the form of the local water utility, local building department, local tax authority, local garbage collector, and maybe the local emergency service. None of these people are elected and yet they are the ones that we are most likely to come in contact with. How do we have an effect on how that service is delivered? Unless we make it a public issue that causes embarrassment to the elected officials, the answer is usually, we don't.

Given that we are frequently treated poorly by some of these agencies and we have no recourse, how do we change the system to make it more responsive to the customer, in this case....us? How do we make the garbage man replace the lid on the can when he finishes dumping it? How do we make the TSA worker treat us politely and not like some convicted terrorist? How do we get the building department to issue permits in a speedy and helpful way? How do we get the motor vehicle representative to be polite?

Thoughts anyone?


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