Sonia Pitt -- The By-Product of Government on the Cheap

Category: Minnesota Politics

by Dave Mindeman

Sometimes you see a story that pretty much exemplifies how stupid things can get.

Remember Sonia Pitt -- the MnDOT employee who was fooling around in Washington when the I-35 Bridge went down? Well, she landed a new job.

Yes, she is now a "Transportation Security Specialist".

But let's not be too harsh with her. After all, she merely personifies how government gets administrated. It is not what you know, it is who you know. We prefer nepotism and cronyism to competence.

And you know, its our own fault...yes, "we, the people"...it's our fault. We want a government that works but we want it cheap. After all, why compensate people properly and pay them what they are worth, when we have all these career bureaucrats ready to work cheaply as long as they can exploit us for the rest.

Here are some examples:

Senators and Representatives are paid reasonably well but they could make far more in the private sector. Yet, they continue to seek re-election because they want the influence and they know at some point they can retire to a lucrative lobbyist job. A study was recently done that put the number at 43%. Want to do something about earmarks? Stop that revolving door.

Then there is Monica Goodling -- the Justice Dept administrator with the unique job interview style. Why is she not in jail? As well as all of her bosses including Alberto Gonzales? The reason they are not in jail is because they were IN CHARGE OF THE DEPT. OF JUSTICE! Who the heck is going to prosecute them? The Bush administration is certainly not going to pursue the issue because THAT'S WHAT THEY WANTED. Incompetence hired to hire more incompetence. It's a never ending circle.

And in Minnesota, justice has some equally notable flaws. The Pawlenty administration, in its never ending pursuit of budget cuts, slashed the budget of the court system. Then he appoints one of his buddies to be the Chief Justice of Minnesota. As we all are aware, the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow -- but in Minnesota's case, they are not grinding at all. The backlog in court cases is weeks, months, and sometimes years long. Public defenders have been cut back so much that some counties will have to sue the state to get help -- and they have a strong argument that lack of counsel violates the Constitution. In this case, justice is blind is not an expression.

And one more thing -- Minnesota's restricted ceiling on government salaries.....it is costing us money. It truly, severely limits our pool of available personnel. Maybe we can't fully compete with the private sector in terms of salary, but let's get rid of this artificial cap. Top quality administrators will save the state budget huge amounts of money...well beyond the probably large increase in salaries that would be involved. With the current restrictions we are at the mercy of the Sonia Pitt's of the world. They are the only ones we can afford.

So, in reality, it is not surprising that Sonia Pitt was rewarded for her incompetence. All she needed to do was look to the Federal Homeland Security Dept -- where incompetence is becoming part of the job description.