Governments often take actions — or fail to act — in ways that would be treated as crimes if committed by an individual or a company. Take the scandalous U.S. Education Department’s Teach Grant program that defrauds idealistic young teachers.

Or compare the way federal and California agencies treated Volkswagen’s use of emission cheaters with the way they treat their own lack of action to head off a public health and environmental disaster, one that affects millions of Southern California consumers and could be much more harmful than the emissions from a few hundred thousand cars.