A Government Program Doesn’t Seem to Work. Does Anybody Care?

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today about the federal Job Corps program.  A new report by the Labor Department’s Inspector General apparently raises questions about whether the Job Corps is doing any good; i.e., whether it is really accomplishing what it is supposed to do.  The Journal editorial lists some of the failings the Inspector General’s report found.  My question here, though, is not whether the editorial, or the Inspector General, is right about how well the Job Corps is doing its job.  My question is: Does anybody care?

The Job Corps apparently costs $1.7 billion a year.  (That used to sound like real money.  Now it sounds like a rounding error.)  But other than the Inspector General’s report, is anybody checking to see if the program works?  I know that it has a good intention: helping people get training and skills – and jobs.  But are we checking to see if it is actually succeeding?

While some on the left might claim this question is just another effort to cut government spending and not help people who need it, it’s not.  It’s the opposite.  I am not complaining about the money.  I just want to make sure people are getting helped.

In fact, I would think that those on the left would be among those who most wanted to make sure that the Job Corps is doing its job.  If you think people need help and you set up a program to help them, don’t you want to make sure the program actually works?

Obviously, people set up businesses all the time that fail.  Whether it’s a bad idea, poorly implemented, or neeed to be done in a different way, businesses fail.  Why should we assume that all government programs work that way they are supposed to work and help the people they are supposed to help?  In private enterprise, sometimes things don’t work.  Why should we assume that federal programs are different?

This isn’t a matter of cutting spending.  This is a matter of getting value for the money we are spending.  More importantly, it’s about making sure that the people we want to help are really getting helped.  That would seem to be something everybody could agree on.