The cost of incompetence in government.

There is a cost associated with the continued presence in state government of the conjoined twins; corruption and incompetence.

It is easy to wrap one's mind around the losses due to corruption. One can see how the corruption in the Courthouse scandal cost taxpayers millions.

The losses due to incompetence are probably far greater, but harder to see. Trip Jennings has a revealing read in the NMI, link, about the incompetence that keeps state computer systems from functioning efficiently, and sometimes, from functioning at all.

It turns out that political appointees don't necessarily know how to design or maintain computer systems.

Now there's a surprise.