Rot and Burden
Iowa native Kari Lake, after a career in TV news and two campaigns for elective office in Arizona, was appointed by President Trump to run the Voice of America media service. She is currently a senior advisor at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is the parent company of Voice of America and Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
She and the Agency issued a news release Saturday, a day after the President issued an executive order dismantling a number of government offices, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and employees received emails about their employment status the following day.
In the news release, Lake noted that the agency was “not salvageable,” stating, “From top-to-bottom this agency is a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer—a national security risk for this nation—and irretrievably broken. While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule,” the press release said.
In a simpler time, VOA and its broadcast properties may have been a way to get word about freedom and democracy out to areas under censorship. But like many organizations over time, it got bigger and bigger and its mission less and less clear.
VOA specifically notwithstanding, this sounds like the problem with so many federal outlets and agencies—the lack of oversight, and fiefdom building, has been going on for so long, there’s no way to fix it from the inside. Better and easier to get rid of it and start over, should a successor agency be needed. Hard to spin “irretrievably broken”…along with “giant rot and burden.”
I’m not arguing for or against Voice of America. But when agencies or organizations get too insular, too comfortable, and too complacent, failure often follows. No one said fixing government bloat was going to be easy. Sometimes, it’s better to buy a different car than to spend tons of money fixing an old one. That concept might be helpful in evaluating government agencies, too.
