This interview with the director of Arizona’s Department of Commerce is chilling.
Ronald Reagan once said that you could probably send most government bureaucrats home and it would be many days before the American people even noticed. He could have been speaking about the Arizona Department of Commerce.
The first question in the interview is simply this — what do you do? The question is never answered. But listen to this mindset:
If you are going to someday have a job, we hope that we have an impact on your life. If you currently have a job, we hope we’ve had an impact on that; that you have a quality job, you have a myriad of benefits and your income is enough to afford you housing in the state.
We hope that if you’ve come to Arizona because you’re retired that commerce has somehow impacted your life because we have provided you with a kind of quality job that has allowed you to finally retire.
If you read the full interview carefully, you will discover that the Commerce Department director asks more questions than provides answers. And without any detail, she seems to say that the government has a responsibility to get you a job with good benefits.
But sneaking through the bureaucratic verbiage is this simple truth — commerce happens, and will continue to happen with or without a “Department of Commerce.”
The best thing our government can do for Arizona commerce is get out of the way.