Your Government at work

A couple years ago Indiana changed the way it assigned licence plate numbers. Previously car plates began with a prefix denoting the county the owner lived in. For instance plated issued in Adams county were assigned a 1, Clinton a 12 and Shelby 73, and so on. Then the county prefix was followed by a letter, then random numbers. So your plate would look like this :

12 A 3456

Motorcycle and Truck plates were always a combination of letters and numbers. They also had "motorcycle" or "Truck" printed on the plate.

In an effort to make life easier for consumers The State decided to do away with the county prefix, allowing one to buy their plates at any BMV Branch in the State. This was a good thing. Plates for all vehicles are now a combination of letters and numbers.

Some bureaucrat decided that as long as the tags had "motorcycle" or "truck" printed on them there would be no problem if the combination of letters and numbers for the plate numbers assigned to automobiles might be duplicate. The geniuses in the Government had no clue that the wrong person might get a ticket. Since some States and localities use traffic cameras to issue a ticket (nefarious at best) the wrong citizens are getting tickets! Idiots. Source

Example two of Government incompetence. My oldest son is a server in a restaurant. To handle or sell alcohol in Indiana you have to have a liqueur licence (must the State be involved in everything?). He applied, sent in his $60 and took the required class in January. To date he still has not received his paperwork. More than six weeks to process a Liqueur Licence. This should be simple. Is the paperwork filled out correctly? Is the applicant over 21? EOS, issue the damn certificate. Three minutes tops. Why would this take six or eight weeks to process?

The State revenue agents are cracking down in the community where he works. An application on file at the restaurant is not good enough, without the actual licence on hand he is not allowed to work. Incompetence and bureaucratic laziness means he loses his income until he can get the paperwork.

He has tried to call numerous times to follow up his application. The ATC (Alcohol Tobacco Commission) has a recorded phone line telling the address and hours of operation. My son cut class yesterday to go in person. They are only open until 4:30 -- way to serve the working public Indiana. He drove an hour to the capitol City, paid to park. he spent ten minutes going through security and arrived at the ATC at 4:31. The doors were locked. The work schedules are done on Wednesday, so now he is out of work for another week.

And just think, some of you think the Government would be the best option to control or health care system.


* Yes, I know these are examples of State Government idiocy. Do you really want to make the argument the Feds are better or even less incompetent?