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Ronald Reagan always liked to say “The most terrifying nine words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” If Reagan were still alive, he might agree that there is an even more frightening phrase is “Senate Democrats introduced a comprehensive reform bill today.”

From health care to financial reform, from the environment to immigration, the Party of Government reflexively over reaches. There are many issues and problems confronting Americans and their society. Some are serious. Some are critical. Instead of solving problems, the Party of Government seeks to impose and enforce solutions regardless of the people’s will. The solutions must be dramatic in design, comprehensive in scope, and above all else, they must expand the role of government.

The best way to expand the role of government is through comprehensive reform. There is no better example than “Health Care Reform,” which under the guise of addressing runaway costs, brought virtually the entire health care industry under government control. With hundreds of new commissions, committees and boards, all staffed by new public employees, the table has been set for the federal government to consume individual choice in that most personal of matters, our own health.

It isn’t just the big issues which the Party of Government uses to extend control. In fact, every single occurrence in daily life is viewed as an opportunity to expand the scope and reach of government. Take for example the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. That it is an environmental disaster is beyond doubt. It is also tragic, and its effects will be felt for decades to come. What was the reflexive response of the Party of Government? To expand the government.

Oil drilling safety standards are regulated and enforced by the Minerals Management Service, what the “Wall Street Journal” calls “a small division of” the Department of Interior. This small division has 1,700 employees, including 60 safety inspectors. The Obama Administration wants to expand the number of inspectors to 300, and to divide the MMS into two departments. In other words, an oil spill is the perfect excuse for hiring more government employees.

In addition to ensuring the safety of oil drilling, the MMS collects royalties from oil and gas companies. The rationale for splitting those functions is what can be called the Enron Syndrome. Major accounting firms once offered both audit and consulting services to the same corporations. Since consulting brought in more revenues, accountants faced pressure to accept corporate numbers, no matter how fanciful they might have been, rather than run the risk of losing the consulting contract. The thinking here is that MMS inspectors are pressured to go easy on safety inspections rather than risk the revenues from oil and gas leases.

There are two problems with this theory. First, even if an oil company is angry at an inspector’s refusal to approve substandard safety equipment, if it wants to drill offshore or on public land, it has to lease that area from the federal government. They can’t take their business elsewhere. The second flaw with this reasoning is these are public employees. It doesn’t matter how much lease money they collect, they get paid the same amount. In fact, if they could figure out a way to alienate potential bidders, they would, because that would mean there would be less paperwork to process, thereby leaving them more time for organizing Oil Drilling Safety Conferences in Reykjavik, St. Moritz or Las Vegas.

What’s even more ridiculous about this knee jerk expansionism is the blowout didn’t happen because there weren’t enough inspectors, or because the inspectors were afraid of alienating British Petroleum. It happened because inspectors didn’t do their job, or even worse, didn’t know what their job entailed. An MMS official, Jason Matthews, told a Senate hearing that prospective drillers are required to submit proof to the agency that their blowout preventers are big enough to sever and seal a pipe during an emergency. However, an MMS drilling engineer named Frank Patton, who approved BP’s drilling permit, had no idea that he was supposed to determine whether the safety measures were actually capable of functioning. “I have never been told to look for that,” he said.

This is how Party of Government math works. Take a department with 60 safety inspectors who are either unwilling or incapable of learning what their job requires. Add one environmental disaster directly connected to the inspectors’ failure to do their job. Conclusion: quintuple the size of their department.

Maybe a better solution would be to require the 60 inspectors to do their job. Or possibly, take a look at their computers. Maybe they’ve been spending more time visiting pornographic chat rooms with SEC investigators than they have been visiting oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.