These folks cannot run a Taco Stand!

It is churlish of me to use a piece of good news and wise decision making to beat up the U.S. Senate. But that's what I'm here for.

WaPo: Senate Votes To Privatize Its Failing Restaurants

Year after year, decade upon decade, the U.S. Senate's network of restaurants has lost staggering amounts of money -- more than $18 million since 1993, according to one report, and an estimated $2 million this year alone, according to another.
[...]
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Rules and Administrations Committee, which oversees the operation of the Senate, said she had no choice.

"It's cratering," she said of the restaurant system. "Candidly, I don't think the taxpayers should be subsidizing something that doesn't need to be. There are parts of government that can be run like a business and should be run like businesses."

In a letter to colleagues, Feinstein said that the Government Accountability Office found that "financially breaking even has not been the objective of the current management due to an expectation that the restaurants will operate at a deficit annually."

I don't mean to impugn the restaurant business, or taco stands (mmm Tacos...), they require hard work and good decision making. But this underscores the broken incentive structure of top-down, government, command-and-control. Who thinks they will do any better running health care? Energy?

No you can't, Senator Obama. The structure is wrong. Read a little Hayek.

UPDATE: Too late to change my headline? It seems Yum!® Corporation cannot run a taco stand either. I went to Taco Bell (mmm Tacos...) and they are no longer offering tomatoes, or the Fresca menu (which uses tomatoes) and my order of a Mango Frutista was declined because "the Mango machine is busted." It's like the Soviet Union in Lafayette!

110th Congress Posted by jk at June 9, 2008 10:52 AM