By Barry Rubin
As a native-born Washingtonian (Columbia Hospital for Women) whose family arrived in the city when President Theodore Roosevelt was in office, I note an omission in all the budget/economic debate that amazes me.
It is scarcely a secret in Washington that Federal government employees generally don’t work real hard and don’t get a lot of good things done. Sure, people who work in the government bureaucracy will heatedly deny this when they’re interviewed in the mass media or in the propaganda coming from the Federal employees unions. But people in the nation’s capital know that isn’t true. Have you ever actually been in any government office? And I don’t mean those created to serve the public directly (though post offices and motor vehicle bureaus are good places to start. I mean behind the scenes, when people are sitting around doing either nothing or something useless or counterproductive.
There is massive over-staffing, make-work, and totally unnecessary spending. People justify themselves because they run “projects” and enforce regulations. But most of these projects don’t actually achieve anything while many of the regulations either bring no change for the better or actually make things worse.
As I said, none of this is a secret. People who work in government know it. I will limit myself to one anecdote: a government employee doing what is ostensibly vital work who remarks that there are three people doing his job that could be done by one.
And so when President Barack Obama claims–as he did recently–that cutting the government budget will bring the end of weather forecasts, no student will be able to get a scholarship, and children’s lives will be endangered by the lack of food inspection, how can anyone keep a straight face? It wasn’t long ago that Senator Harry Reid was explaining that the administration couldn’t cut the budget because that would eliminate the much-loved Cowboy Poetry Festival.
But let’s get real. If the entire departments of education, energy, and several others would be abolished–with their few vital functions being transferred elsewhere–would the quality of life suffer in the United States? Would the quality of education plummet? Would America be less able to produce the energy it needs? Actually, energy production would almost certainly improve.
Here’s a good idea for journalists. Pick a government department that deals with domestic matters–Labor, Justice, Agriculture, Education, your choice–go through its organizational table and ask what “vital” service is carried out by any given bureau, office, branch, or section. Isn’t it amazing that nobody is doing that in all the passionate debate over government spending levels, taxes, and regulations?
I don’t say this from any ideological preconception but merely from years of observation. Why should any real liberal–as opposed to a statist, radical, populist seeking to build a political base by trading government jobs and entitlements for votes–fight to keep the government from shrinking in the face of huge deficits?
A very large proportion of Federal employees shuffle paper, do absolutely useless things, and have a productivity level far below that of those citizens who pay their salaries. Hasn’t anyone actually been in a government office or ever had a private conversation with a bureaucrat who admitted the truth? And the same, of course, holds for state governments.
I can imagine someone reading this with horror. Yet the whole thing is actually quite humorous. The ineffectiveness and uselessness of most of what goes on in large sectors of the Federal government is really obvious from close up. You don’t start by talking about firing those who feed starving children but those who maintain useless (even strangling) regulations and do absolutely nothing useful. It’s hilarious to pretend that much, most, or almost all of those ever-expanding government offices (someone should do a tour to show the endless increase of buildings spreading all over the Washington area), are vital.
Leave the firefighters, police, and teachers alone. Fire the useless bureaucrats. They know who they are. Why don’t we?
PS: Since this was published several friends who work for the U.S. government have confirmed the article’s accuracy with some terrific examples. Collect your own first-person accounts. Another friend points out that most of the Federal budget doesn’t go for salaries. Of course, that’s true but if you want to deal with the deficit getting rid of highly paid people who do nothing useful and the budgets of programs that are worthless is a good start!
Speaking as one who served as a useless bureaucrat for years I can assure you that if government cuts are made it will be from the workforce that does do something, not the useless ones.
OK here’s a joke.
How Our Government Works
How Our Government Works
(Or just about any large corporation these days)
Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the
middle of a desert. Congress said “Someone may steal from it at
night.” So they created a night watchman position and hired a
person for the job.
Then Congress said, “How does the watchman do his job without
instruction?” So they created a planning department and hired two
people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to
do time studies.
Then Congress said, “How will we know the night watchman is doing
the tasks correctly?” So they created a Quality Control
department and hired two people. One to do the studies and one to
write the reports.
Then Congress said, “How are these people going to get paid?” So
they created the following positions, a timekeeper, and a payroll
officer, then hired two people.
Then Congress said, “Who will be accountable for all of these
people?” So they created an administrative section and hired
three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative
Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
Then Congress said, “We have had this command in operation for
one year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall
cost.”
So they laid off the night watchman.
#2 Bob from Virginia.
That was really good.
Bureaucracy sucks.
The Civil Service merit system had its problems –e.g. Murphy’s Law, but without the merit system the Civil Service is far worse. The present spoils system was initiated by then President Carter and since enhanced by the politicians. The problem is — no one has suggested a method of returning to a merit system, but across the board cuts, the only way congress has the courage to act, just makes the government much more ineffective.
Bob of Virginia, right on!!
Forget merit pay if that is what you are suggesting. It only introduces fiscal corruption into an already potentially corrupt workplace. Managers single out their cronies and girlfriends for promotion and honors. I encountered GS-13s who were promoted on the basis of their bra size, and whose IQ was someplace between a rock and a turnip. Likewise I had a Phd. friend who could not get above a secretaries position. For a healthy mind government is a place to shelter during bad times.
BTW I should mention I once took a complaint to the Major General commanding my agency and came away convinced he was a complete loon. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, he was relieved of his command. Thus is government work.
I saw the most effective way to trim the fat in government under the Bush administration. By design or happenstance, the new appointees started asking for on the spot explanations of what the money was being spent on from the managers. There was unhappiness but those bosses also didn’t want to burn in that spotlight again so they looked for long neglected areas that were hard to defend. Once that happens if you follow up with cuts, you get real trimming. But it has to happen at many levels, way down into the weeds and it won’t be some big slice, but the shavings add up.
I was told a story of a budget briefing, pretty low level, where a boss had just completed his slide presentation for a, I forget, $2 million increase in his budget. The new agency budget officer stops him, sends me back to slide 2 and asks, “What are you spending the $20 million budget you get now on?” He couldn’t intelligently discuss his current operations. Well, that time, after that all the bosses got themselves up to speed.
But that is the problem, in Washington, once something is passed or once a budget is approved, there is only increases and expansions, for some reason, no one ever will look at what is already going on.
We see that with Congress and things like the EPA. For some reason, what one Congress enacts, let no other Congress put asunder is the now the rule of Washington.
One dramatic change we should work toward in government at all levels is that the majority should be transitory. Enacted to solve a problem then reviewed with an eye toward when it may be dissolved from burdening the People. This is hardly a view that will be embraced by the bureaucrat who hopes to toil indefinitely even after the laudable goal has been accomplished to become like the painters of the Golden Gate Bridge, ever couple years reaching the end only to return to the other side to begin again.
One thing that Rubin seems to be missing is that the federal bureaucracy is a hidden apparatus of welfare, especially for the groups favored by affirmative action. The creation of unproductive sinecures at taxpayer expense is whole point.
And you have all forgotten the penetrating question asked by Walt Kelly, who drew “Pogo” for years, voiced by Churchy LaFemme (spelled wrong, I’m sure): Whatchy’all expect from the Civil Service? Singin’ n’ dancin’?”
Barry, here’s a cartoon on the Civil Service String Trio that encapsulates your point quite well.
Bob from Virginia –You are right about merit pay. The merit system was the system in place prior to merit pay. Merit pay was instituted by Jimmy Carter.
The criticism of the merit system is that employees would rise to their level of incompetence, and then would no longer be promoted. Hence, everyone in the higher grades were likely to be incompetent. Under the present spoils system, exacerbated by merit pay, everyone is more than likely to be incompetent.
The really hilarious thing about the Obamacare debate was the idea that if the government is doing it, it will be done more efficiently or compassionately or more effectively, with none of that wasteful stuff that goes on in the private sector. For that matter, the entire idea underlying socialism is the same, that the government will do better than private enterprise can do.
I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t willfully blind thinking that who has ever had his driver’s license renewed–and I must say, I hear many fewer horror stories about Michigan’s motor vehicles agencies than about most other states.
But that’s the essence of leftism–a studied, principled disregard of actual facts in favor of ideology.