Government Inefficiencies
Once in awhile, I sit back and ask myself the following question: what would be the first thing I would do as President of the United States? C’mon, now… I know that I’m not the only one who has thought about this before.
My answer always ends up on government efficiency. I’ve always thought that a new President should have every single government agency and government program manager should beg for their survival. Why? Because every President has different priorities and wants to spend money in different places. When new presidents get into office, they’ll start their own agendas without ever taking a look at other programs that have been started in previous administrations. If they do, they always keep funding them because they don’t want to look cold.
This creates tremendous inefficiencies. I think the American people understand that. Trimming fat from the budget is something that needs to be perpetual. Like I mentioned before, I would truly enjoy every agency and program manager begging me for the existence of their agency and program.
The inefficiencies of the government have reached the point where even the bureaucrats know that they’re inefficient. Government executives were recently surveyed, and the results are quite startling.
How much of your office’s spending do you think could be trimmed through greater efficiencies and better planning without it hurting performance?
The answer was that 74% believed that some amount of funding could be cut without any drop in productivity.
Do you think your agency is wasting money sponsoring or sending employees to conferences?
Sixty-six percent said “yes.”
Those numbers are staggering, to say the least.
One method of solving this problem, and probably the best method, is to contract much of the work out. The Heritage Foundation agrees.
From a policy perspective, we wonder that competitive sourcing wouldn’t address the lax and wasteful budgeting and work procedures behind these poor results. The basic idea is that government workers compete with private-sector entities in submitting bids for the functions that they now perform. This makes sense especially when the functions are not inherently governmental, such as: trash collection and recycling programs, janitorial services, facilities management, motor vehicle service and repair, operation of prisons and jails, data processing, park maintenance, etc. Why shouldn’t private firms do these tasks, at lower costs to taxpayers and often far greater efficiency than government workers?
Why not have the private sector do as much as possible? It makes so much sense that it’s probably a sin to speak of it in Washington.
The government doesn’t have to be so bulky. Obviously, conservatives will agree with that.
I agree with that statement so much that I would make it priority number one, if elected.
