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Comment by imroot | Hacker News Reader

From a licensing point of view, Philadelphia is interesting. The PPA manages the licensing of Taxi and Limo services in Philadelphia, but, outside of the county, it's all the PA Department of Transportation. Pennsylvania constables can work in any area of Pennsylvania once certified, but not in Philadelphia.

Am I surprised by this? Not in the least. It's possible that Uber got an ok by PennDOT and thought that it would be good throughout the state...or, this might be the PPA throwing their weight behind their revenue protection. Regardless by which one it is, I would hope that Uber will protect the drivers who took their advice (then again, independent contractors and the like) and drove.

*edit: grammar/spelling.

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I'm really starting to think that we generally need some sort of organization at city, county, state and county level whose sole purpose of existing is to identify governmental organizations/agencies to which Kevin Kelly's "Shirky Principle" apply

    “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which 
    they are the solution.” — Clay Shirky

http://kk.org/thetechnium/2010/04/the-shirky-prin/

This isn't about agencies regulating transportation and ridesharing, but about many governmental agencies set up during the 19th and 20th century. There are a lot of useful organizations/agencies, but just as many if not more which have become zombies feeding off society to keep receiving paychecks while burdening us with unnecessary bureaucracy.

Such an agency would be the governmental equivalent of the consultants that come in and identify the dead weight in a company, which need to be let go for the company to stay relevant.

PS I suspect someone will point out the irony in creating organizations/agencies, whose sole purpose is identifying unnecessary agencies and proposing how to wind them down and eliminate them altogether, but I can't see how such an agency could ever reach the point where it would prefer the problem to which it is the solution. Furthermore, if that were the only agency left preserving itself, I could live with that.

I don't think all the blame belongs with the agencies. Certainly some, or most. But the legislative branch also tends to force agencies to regulate things they'd rather ignore. See also: the military declining orders for new tanks, but being forced to accept them because they're made in an important senator's state.

Totally agree. I guess what I had in mind was an agency that constantly re-evaluates other agencies and writes the legislation to wind down and then shut down needlessly bureaucratic agencies that preserve the problems to which they are the solution. At the end of the day, an act of law needs to be passed to shut down agencies which came into existence via acts of law.

The more I see how government is run, the more I see that lawmakers are commit generators that never take the time to re-factor all the code they've committed to production. Think of this agency as the ones that sit down and get their hands dirty refactoring the code and handing it off to the lawmakers for code review before being committed to the code base.

I appreciate that many laws are passed to solve genuine problems. I don't appreciate the fact that they are never checked to make sure they were effective or continue to be effective.

Regarding the specific military tank example, I'm certain that there must be a way to set things up so that stupid stuff like that can't pass. I honestly don't see how purchase orders for military equipment could ever be a law issue. The fact that the military can't make purchases according to their own needs and budgets is insane. The money spent on those tanks would be better off being spend on all the veteran's affairs programs that are often underfunded.

The Government Accountability Office (for the federal government, at least) does exactly what you describe. Too bad GAO studies are, at best, used as political footballs to make sitting politicians look bad at election time and at worst, are ignored completely.

It's even more "interesting" than that...

"Originally, the Authority's Board of Directors was controlled by city officials, but the legislature, acting at the initiative of Representative John Perzel,[4] has shifted control to state officials, including the Governor and officers of the legislature."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Parking_Authority

Philadelphia is the only "first class" city in PA, which has a few regulatory consequences.

Another being that it's the only place in the state where you need a license to openly carry a firearm.

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