How Government works

Via the Canadian Taxpayer Federation (print edition)

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Parliament said "someone may steal from it at night" so they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Parliamant said "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write instructions, and one person to write the schedule.

Then Parliament said "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a quality control Department and hired three people. One to create the quality control measures, one to write the reports, and one to measure performance.

Then Parliamant said "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created a payroll department and hired four people: a time keeper, a payroll officer, a payroll clerk, and a chequebook administrator.

Then Parliament said, "who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired five people: an administrative officer, assistant administrative officer, secretary, an accoutant, and an auditor.

Then Parliament said, "we have this scrapyard in operation for only one year and we are already $750,000 over budget, we must cut back overall cost.:

So they laid off the night watchman.