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To: Solon who wrote (12606)	5/10/2002 1:52:17 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

Again you miss the point. The departments I listed for you must justify their existence and their performance openly, objectively, and within the bitterness of adversarial partisanism. And a lot of the programs they run are buried in a budget that when printed out is too heavy for a man to carry. Most of the people who vote for the budget don't even know about item a in paragraph b, in section c on page 3896 of some budget. It's nonsense to claim that they have made some sort of judgement on the performance of efficency of the program or the need to have the government provide this service. When they do know about it and when they have made a judgement about it, the judgement is more likely to be "this will help my district", or "a big campaign contributer likes this program so I'll vote for it", then it is to be something like "this is an important program that will efficently provide a useful service". How should the Department of Defense be made productive and efficient? So I can't even say that it often is inefficient if I don't have a blueprint on how to make it efficient? That doesn't make sense. Ackowledgeing the inefficiency is the starting point. Should NASA be abandoned? Ideally transportation to orbit should eventually be provided by private companies. NASA might have a job in terms of space research and programs like putting the first man on Mars. Also it might be useful for NASA or some other government agency to provide some regulation of space launch services, since anything that can put a decent sized payload in to orbit could also function as an ICBM. And you think the paperwork and time and meetings in the private sector increases efficiency? No I just believe there is more of these things in the public sector. Esp. if you are comparing relatively unregulated areas of the private sector to the public sector. The heavily regulated parts of the private sector have a large paper work load as well but this is to meet government (or public sector) requirements. What you originally said was that public employees were less productive. It was only after I challenged that assertion and asked you for proof, that you said their agencies were less valuable. Now, you merely state that the "system" is "worse". It all fits together. The public employees are less productive because they do work that is more likely to not be useful or valuable. The work is less likely to be useful and valuable because the incentives of the system and the lack of the discipline that the market gives to the private sector. Private sector companies that are somehow insulated from competition often are similarly inefficent. Tim

To: Solon who wrote (12606)	5/10/2002 2:20:04 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

And you think the paperwork and time and meetings in the private sector increases efficiency? I haven't worked in gov't. I have worked in strictly commercial companies and companies whose sole source of sustenance is the gov't. I can assure that the amount of paperwork, meetings, and bureaucracy is much higher in the latter. You seem to be the sole liberal on the thread currently. (Poet and E are both away.) You should feel free to call in help if this RW wolfpack gets to be too much.