Echoing that, when the IRS’s audits of conservative groups emerged, the agency managers’ defense was that the IRS is too big for anyone to know what its agents are doing. Thus both the NSA and IRS are too big to avoid endangering the public.

It is hard to imagine a more apolitical federal function than the nation’s weather satellites. The ones we have—to predict hurricanes and such—are about to wear out and need to be replaced. Can’t do it. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the Pentagon have been trying to replace the old weather satellites, since 1994. The Government Accountability Office says “we are looking at potentially a 17-month gap” in this crucial weather data. NOAA has good scientists whose bad luck is they work for a collapsing constellation of bureaucracies.

The State Department missed signs of the Arab Spring’s insurrections in late 2010 despite warnings from outside groups. Egypt is in flames, in part, because State for years has been mainly a massive, drifting bureaucracy. Little wonder Hillary Clinton spent four years in flight from the place.

Even some conservatives have given up and boarded the death star. The Senate immigration bill throws $46 billion at the Department of Homeland Security to implement a “border surge” strategy that has no chance of achieving its goals. Securing the border is the conservatives’ Solyndra.