The failure of federal government agencies to enforce regulations and exert control over off-shore oil operations is but one example of a bigger problem, one that is more systemic than the oil industry.

This is the pattern: There comes an industry for which everyday Americans desire regulations — food, drugs, agriculture, oil, airlines, banking, financing, coal mining, power plants, public airwaves, you name it.

The federal lawmakers respond to the wishes of the people and create an agency to regulate an industry, such as the Environmental Protection Agency or the Food and Drug Administration and so on.

At first, the regulators do their job. The government is effective. But over time the companies being regulated become powerful and do not like the rules. They donate money through various means to campaigns and, when their candidates are successful, the people appointed to lead the regulating agencies are former executives of the regulated industry.

In other words, the fox guards the henhouse.

These executives-turned-bureaucrats work to make their agencies weak. They work to enforce fewer rules, even if the rules are on the books. Strangely, they often will enforce the rules that keep small competitors from going toe to toe with the big companies they favor.

And when more key positions open up within the agencies, they place cronies who share the same anti-regulation views, so that when political winds change and the people at the top leave, the industries are left with buddies on the inside.

Basically, the agencies go through periods of weakness from which it is difficult to recover. They can’t change quickly unless something big shocks the system.

It happened with airlines and rules for airline security, until 9/11. It happened with TV networks and the FCC, until Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl. It happened with coal mining companies and the Environmental Protection Agency. We will see what happens in the wake of the West Virginia tragedy.

It still happens with coal-fired power plants, leaving communities downwind with steep health risks. It still happens with drugs and the FDA. It happens in industry after industry.

So it is any surprise to Americans that Minerals Management Service failed to do its job when it comes to the offshore oil spill in the Gulf?

Not really. It was in bed with the oil companies. This is the direction Americans have been voting for over the last 30 years. The state of our federal government reflects that.

If Americans want a government they can trust, they need to elect trustworthy leaders who envision a strong, effective government, not a weak government.