Government Sucks

I'm pretty firmly convinced by now that a big government does stupid things. I just read an NYT articleabout Jefferds Huyck, a Santa Cruz Latin teacher who has a doctorate in classics from Harvard and 22 years of teaching experience, just taught 16 students who earned honors on a nationwide Latin exam, and not considered "highly qualified" under California education officials' interpretation of the No Child Left Behind Act. So he's leaving public school to teach private school, rather than suffer a 2-year, $15,000 teacher-certification program in which his wife (after an English literature Ph.D and a statewide teaching award) learned to write lesson plans and maintain classroom order.

This is just after I read William Easterly's "The Cartel of Good Intentions: The Problem of Bureaucracy in Public Aid," which reads like an absurdist novel as it details how the thicket of bureaucracy in agencies like the IMF, WB and WTO prevents any aid from actually helping its receipients.

I'm still not sold on the whole "taxation is a heinous moral wrong" thing, but give it some time.