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To: Solon who wrote (12579)	5/10/2002 7:17:46 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 21057

To say that Government workers writ large are unproductive can only be taken as a dismissive and belittling comment. It is dismissive of both persons and agencies. Solon, I have been loosely following this colloquy. As you know, I have a stake in the reputation of government employees. I did not see Tim tarnishing it. He seemed quite careful early in the discussion to point out that he was talking about the system, not the people who populate it. I can testify from personal experience about the incredible disfunction in the way government programs are funded and prioritized and I agree with Tim on the lack of efficiency. I can provide ample examples from the US government. My sole experience with the Canadian government was a meeting at which everything had to be translated into French despite the fact that everyone in the room was a native English speaker. Now, there might be something positive to be said about that, but it's definitely not efficient. I recall a point where the management technique in vogue--we always called it the flavor of the month--was to categorize activities as doing right things right, right things wrong, wrong things wrong, and wrong things right. There was never much in the right-things-right column. And the system rarely allowed anything anything to be done to improve that record.

To: Solon who wrote (12579)	5/10/2002 11:50:30 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

When a house is burning down I want the fire out--not halfway out. The cost to the community is the secondary consideration. The outcome is the first. Yes its a secondary consideration in that case but your comment was that outcome was the only consideration not the primary. Also not every case is such an emergency. If the cost is high enough and the urgency of the spending low enough I would argue that the cost is the primary consideration. To pretend that public agencies do not need to be justified is hogwash. Look at these agencies. Every year they must pass a detailed examination by Management and Budget as well as by the Representatives of Congress. Both sides of the House must critique them in terms of usefulness, value, and cost efficiency. 1 - They get justified by a political process which means if they have a politically powerful friend they can get a good budget increase without having to have strong support. Also any large area of government spending is in general extremely hard to eliminate and difficult politically even to reduce. The default is to continue things how they or to grow the program, office or department a bit. It takes a lot of political capital to reduce or eliminate a project and most politician would rather spend that political capital on increasing their own pet projects then on eliminating some one else's. 2 - My comment was more about specific offices or area of responsibility or projects of these departments. The departments as a whole are close to being permanent fixtures so my comment about them not really needing to rejustify themselves is accurate, but my comment about not having a worthwhile mission might not apply to many of them. They do a lot of things that are too expensive or not needed but cut out those things and many or most of the departments would continue to exist, perhaps in a smaller form or as offices in other departments but at least some of their functions would be maintained. 3 - You didn't even mention any state or local government departments. My comment was about government in general, not just the federal governments or even governments in America. 4 - The detailed examinations can be so detailed that they themselves generate inefficiency. The amount of paperwork and time spent in hearings and meetings about this does reduce efficiency. Some of this is unavoidable if we are to keep the agencies accountable to the public, and the private sector does some of this too, but the process is not efficient. 5 - Despite all of the hearings and budget work the money spent is often not well managed. Here is a good example of an enormous amount of money that can't be accounted for by the Pentagon. I don't think the DoD is alone in having this type of thing occur even if the problem is biggest at the DoD. insightmag.com If you have particular evidence of bad employees in one of these departments you ought to complain to the appropriate authorities. Any large organization, public or private is going to have some bad employees. I never said public employees where worse (or better) in terms of skills, character ect. I said the system was worse. When someone carries a child from a burning building do you sneer that he is "unproductive"? If it is not outright hostile, it is at least thoughtless and unsavoury, IMO. Not anything to be proud of... Again you take one of the least wasteful and least controversial examples of government and imply that I am somehow attacking the character of fire fighters. I am not attacking the character of anyone except perhaps politicians, and even then the attack is mild and indirect (on the system they created rather then on them directly). I also didn't say every public function was inefficient or unproductive, or that every or even a strong majority of public sector programs do nothing useful. Just that many are inefficient and a number do little that is useful. And even when dealing with fire and rescue programs efficiency is an important consideration. I would attack the program if it spent $100 mil a year to provide fire protection for a town of 5,000. I don't think that any program is any where near that bad, in fact I would guess that these programs tend to be more efficient and useful then most other areas of government spending, but attacking the inefficiency of government programs doesn't mean I am heaping abuse on some fire fighter who just rescued a kid from a burning building. Tim