America’s new whipping boys are anyone working in the private sector. They are attacked openly, indiscriminately, and insulted to their faces by elected and appointed officials, especially those who want to pass the buck for their own failures. Since government has many serious failures, it’s open season on America’s new whipping boys.
During the English Renaissance whipping boys were educated with the young princes and took the punishment when the prince misbehaved. The phrase and practice has evolved to mean someone that is blamed for problems caused by other people, which is very different from the original. In the original there was no question about who was at fault, it was the prince, the whipping boy took the beating because the teachers could not punish royalty; in the new version we both blame and punish the whipping boys for the transgressions of others.
As for the true transgressors – to paraphrase a movie line – they are in there among those giving the beating; only they are hitting the hardest.
In most cases the consultants, developers, and business people have to take the abuse in silence; their livelihood depends on the decisions of the officials indiscriminately throwing bricks. I can only guess what they are thinking as the accusers try to cement their positions, clean their political closets, or advance their personal agendas by always blaming someone else for their blunders.
How many government scandals do we have to uncover before people recognize that there are the same percentage of careerists, empire builders, self-servers, liars, cheats, and thieves are on the public payroll as on the private side? Open the newspaper or check the net; hardly a day goes by without a major corruption scandal in California. In some cases both sides are working together to clean out the public coffers, the idea that the public transgressors were just innocent dupes is preposterous.
Elected officials, public employees, private employees, business people, professionals, and members of the military service all come from the same pot. Over a lifetime of work they often move between those categories taking their experiences and expertise in one and using it to their personal and economic advantage in another. When you look at any large segment of the American population, you are looking in the mirror and seeing all of us.
Does anyone believe a high-level public employee who might lose their position to the private sector proposal can evaluate the idea without extreme bias?
Except for perhaps the biggest things, and many times even including the biggest things, we usually tell the boss or the customer exactly what they want to hear. That is the reason the public and private sector consistently and significantly underestimates the costs of large undertakings; it’s not because they are incompetent, it’s because they know that presenting the true cost means that the project or job will probably not happen.
When this low-balling occurs, it’s the taxpayers who are cheated; however, it is always rationalized away, it’s a lot easier than thinking you’re being unethical, after all “everybody does it,” and so they do.
The decision makers are not off the hook, they owe it to the voters to assign blame fairly including to themselves. When they or their staffs decide to chase impossible goals or do something at fairytale costs they are setting the projects up for failure. If they are then constantly allowed to blame the whipping boys for their own shortcomings nothing will ever improve.