The Obama administration has spent the past sixteen months trying to convince Americans that the ways of big government are vastly preferable to more limited alternatives. We’ve watched as government has grown bigger and bigger, sucking up anything from auto companies to mortgages to individuals’ private medical decisions. Increasingly during Obama’s term, the government seems bent on proving that it can take over and manage pretty much any industry or any individual need.

Recent events in the Gulf should cause even the most dedicated liberals to question the wisdom of this path. Parts of the oil spill response can fairly be deemed among the federal government’s core functions. Yet the government seems hell-bent on proving that it can’t competently handle its role in an emergency clean-up—or two clean-ups, if you count Hurricane Katrina. What makes some among us think the government can capably handle even bigger matters?

The government should not be in the business of managing which MRIs you can and can’t get when it can’t even deliver a few oil booms in a timely and efficient manner. The government should focus on its basic duties and improve its delivery of those. It should not expand its reach unnecessarily.

It is interesting that Obama has worked so relentlessly to expand the size and scope of government . . . until now, when he has cause to be involved. When it comes to the BP oil spill, he seems a little bit like he’d prefer to run in the opposite direction. Well, unless he can find an excuse to take over BP and/or use the crisis to push through one of his pet legislative projects, clean energy legislation.

Obviously, the buck stops with BP when it comes to bearing responsibility for the ramifications of its actions. Nothing in this article is meant to convey anything to the contrary. But Americans can reasonably expect their government to provide back-up in massive emergencies such as this one. And we should expect such back-up to be provided in a competent manner.

Liberals sometimes think that small government conservatives don’t want or appreciate any role for government. Nothing could be further from the truth. They do. But conservatives distinguish between appropriate versus inappropriate roles for government, for both constitutional and practical reasons. Meanwhile, liberals seem to think that government can do pretty much anything as long as 51 percent of Congress votes for it. But in this case, liberals and conservatives should be able to agree: The federal government has a necessary and appropriate role in assisting the long-term response to large-scale emergencies. (This author continues to think that the immediate response must remain the province of state and local governments, even for large-scale emergencies. Practically speaking, the federal government cannot provide immediate responses to any crisis at any time in any part of the country.)

The federal government should have been able to provide competent back-up to BP and to state officials along the coast. So far, it has not. When the explosion first occurred, no federal agency was prepared with fire booms, despite a 1994 report which recommended that they be available in the event of a major Gulf oil spill. If the booms had been available, fires could have been set to burn much of the oil off the water. Weeks after the accident, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was still waiting for millions of feet in oil booms to help protect Louisiana shores, despite the fact that some of it was ready for delivery, but sitting unused on a dock. Moreover, state officials have had difficulty getting an emergency permit to build barrier islands, which would protect marshes from the oil. And this is all to say nothing of the federal inspectors who visited the rig in the days and weeks before the accident, apparently finding nothing awry.

The Obama administration should be working to improve its performance, but instead it is engaging in a game of blame-shifting. Its most recent move in this regard is to announce its intention to investigate criminal charges against BP. Perhaps criminal charges will be appropriate at some juncture, but the timing of this investigation is highly questionable. The government’s police power is a powerful foe. It should be used responsibly. In this instance, it instead seems that Obama is using it to lash out; it’s an attempt to deflect criticism that has been rightly aimed at him.

And, anyway, why should private actors at BP be subject to criminal charges when the numerous instances of incompetence by government bureaucrats do not carry similar consequences?

The oil spill in the Gulf is obviously a tragedy, not only for the environment, but also for the many Americans who rely upon the Gulf for their livelihood. Sadly, it is also serving as yet another display of governmental incompetence. The bumbling ineffectiveness of the federal agencies involved should give us all pause.

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