Wasting Money: Why Efficiency is Important for Government

Why Does Efficiency Matter?


Let's say you were running a restaurant.  You have to buy enough food everyday meet the demand of your customers and make money.  If you buy too much, you will throw a lot of food away, resulting in wasted money and wasted food.  When you are dealing with money, efficiency always matters.  Our government uses our money to provide services and a lot of the recent national news has been focused on cutting the budget (or saving money).  I advocate reduced spending costs, but I propose cuts mostly in the form of efficiency instead of cutting entire programs.  A lot of money can be saved this way.

For specific statistics (because we love our numbers, even if they can be manipulated for any purpose) please see this recent article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/nyregion/audits-find-widespread-waste-in-albany-spending.html?ref=politics

It presents a good case for efficiency in the state of New York and provides ways to reduce spending without necessarily ripping out all government services and functions.  The same simple idea could be applied to any government.

Governments Usually Take the Easy Way Out


The easiest thing to do is to layoff employees, have furlough days/hours, or just cut entire programs.  Companies in a panic follow this pattern and they usually end up rehiring workers because they find that they have fired too many.  It's an easy way to balance your budget and most employees fall in line because they need their jobs.  You may even find yourself doing the job of two or more because your work has downsized.  If people in charge did more homework, they could find the savings to reduce costs without laying off too many employees.  A classic case study is Southwest Airlines.  During the recent recession, they were a shining example of how a company should invest in its people.  Layoffs were a last resort.  They are still one of the most profitable airlines in the United States.  I am certain government could do the same.

Waste (paying for buildings, telephone lines, office equipment, etc... that no one uses), fraud/abuse (people who exploit the system, internally or externally), duplication (overlapping programs/institutions that do the same thing) are all sources of money going down the crapper.  Before we take the easy way out, we should give efficiency a try.