As a former substitute teacher at Hopkinton High, I fully sympathize with the misery Tyler Czarkowski and his family are going through as they apply for financial aid. I observed it there and at other schools at which I worked. It was never much fun, and that was before the “new and improved” FAFSA. There is no question that numerous government employees screwed up, big time. One doesn’t have to look very hard through news stories to find similar examples of government agencies at all levels that fail in their duties. How about the ongoing debate over the location and cost of Concord’s next middle school? Or the persistent problems at DCYF? The breathtaking levels of blithe incompetence strain Dunning-Kruger limits and demand unimaginable covering of backsides.

But incompetence isn’t the only reason things go wrong. When the profit motive enters the conversation, things can get even worse. No government agency created the deadly failings of Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft; and it was the absence of federal oversight that led to Norfolk Southern’s derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. I know it’s unpopular to say so; but I would remind Tyler, his dad and others that all too many times, government action, incompetent as it may be, is all that stands between an unsuspecting public and the worst byproducts of a free market.

William Politt

Weare