Bill Maher, host of "Real Time" on HBO, wanted to add solar power to his property. He filled out all the forms, got all the permissions, and finally, about a year later, he got approval to build a small shed on his own property. He publicized the process to show how idiotic it was that officials put him through just to build a small structure.
This led Maher, who was interviewed by TMZ's Harvey Levin, to ask the $64,000 question: Why does it take a natural disaster to get rid of red tape?
Mayor Karen Bass signed an executive order aimed at speeding up the process of approving the necessary permits to rebuild. Maher says this proves that all the red tape isn't really necessary in the first place.
“They’re all saying, ‘We’re gonna cut red tape,’ as if they’re doing us a favor. If you can do it now, why don’t you always do it? It’s not a favor to us … why do we live in this red tape nightmare the other times of the year when we’re not on fire?” Maher asked.
The comedian asks the right question. The answer is that the bureaucrats who make the rules and enforce the regulations have absolutely no incentive to speed the process along. There's no incentive to streamline the process. In fact, there is an incentive for bureaucrats to slow the process to a crawl. They are not rewarded for speeding up or slowing down their work. They get paid the same amount of money regardless.
Yes, global warming made things worse, Maher alleged. So did incompetent leaders, and they all hail from the Democratic Party. We’re already seeing movements to recall both LA Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Maher might vote “yes” on both accounts. Why? He says California’s uber progressive politics played a role in the rolling disaster.
“Did it impede [containment efforts] to some degree? Absolutely,” Maher said.
How incompetent is Bass?
Mayor Karen Bass literally just read the words "URL" off her script during the press conference instead of the emergency website for the victims of the fire.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 9, 2025
I think we have a new winner for most incompetent politician in America. pic.twitter.com/KIQfIVCWZB
It appears that the IQ of politicians falls the further left their politics stray. Bass, who supported Communist Cuba, could be the poster child for the Peter Principle, which states that "every employee in an organization will be promoted to their level of incompetence."
Ed Morrissey explains the thinking of people like Bass and Newsom during times of crisis.
In a disaster, though, especially one magnified exponentially by government incompetence and malfeasance, these same bureaucrats and politicians need to minimize the consequences of those failures. They know that the normal process will create an avalanche of misery that doesn't usually matter in isolated cases but will get tons of attention in the aggregate. That means too much scrutiny on the radicals, which means the radicals suddenly get very reasonable ... at least for a while.
Once the press looks the other way or is preoccupied with another story, the radicals will retake the high ground and re-spool the red tape. The reason is simple.
They have the power to do so.
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