expectmore.gov

[KBCraig]

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/garyaldrich/2006/02/17/186920.html


Bush administration: "Expect more government"

Feb 17, 2006
by Gary Aldrich

Do you ever get the sinking feeling when reading a serious piece that the author didn?t realize the implication of his words? One is immediately stricken with such sentiment when having a glance at the website detailing a new Bush administration initiative called ?expectmore.gov.?

A particularly cringe-worthy aspect of the program comes in the website?s choice of a domain name, which ironically reads as, ?expect more government.? However, it?s more important to take to task the very fundamental flaw with the reasoning behind the enterprise. Yes, government corruption, redundancy, power-hoarding, and plain bureaucratic idiocy are all grave problems. But think of the proposed solution?it takes a simple logical reduction to see that the prescription here is to combat ineffective and wasteful government programs with?another government program. Shouldn?t a flag go up if a surgeon proposes to fix your broken arm by taking a 2x4 to the other one?

The website itself is a farcical read worthy of Kafka. The program is supposed to make sure other programs ?set the right goals,? keep them ?aggressive enough,? ?improve [their] management,? and ?maximize [their] performance and get better every year.? But, who watches the watchman?how are we to know that this government program would have a chance to live up to such standards? For example, where is the consultation by successful private sector corporate executives who are used to making profits and insisting on excellence? Instead, bureaucrats watching bureaucrats passes for meaningful reform these days.

Later, the page specifically seeks to shield the program from being seen as an ?excuse by the Administration to cut programs that do not fit in with its conservative ideology.? Consider the absurdity of this defensive stance?the Office of Management and Budget is coming to congress and the American people with the guilty conscious of a schoolchild, ashamed to timidly suggest there might be a problem. With this basis in mind, it becomes apparent that this program sets out with a self-conscious charter that seeks to assuage leftist and bureaucratic fears that it will be a right-wing ?slash ?n burn? policy. Thus, one sees tenets such as assuring that government programs ?get better every year? leaves no room for programs that should not get better, ones that simply should not be at all.

Perhaps the most egregiously telling line on the page is, ?If we believe a program is ineffective and can?t be fixed, or has outlived its usefulness, the Administration may recommend Congress spend the money on higher priority programs? (emphasis added). So, we might, possibly use expectmore.gov to cup out the government?s obvious and unsightly deposits of fat. Even leaving the possibility that OMB could deem a government program completely useless yet still not recommend that the thing be cut uncovers the dubious nature of the offices? protests about government waste.

But we know of this pervasive uselessness already?and decades of studies have supported this conclusion. Can we just get on with the cuts now? It makes one wonder just what these tax-payer funded public servants could be doing instead.

[aries]

I expect more but I hope for less...

[Russell Kanning]

Are they trying to set up as many agencies as possible before they leave office?

[aries]

Are they trying to set up as many agencies as possible before they leave office?

Remember how Clinton's administration took the Ws off the keyboards and gave Bush a bit of a hard time coming into office?

Small potatos. Bush is leaving a sh*tstain a mile long for the next administration to clean up.

[AlanM]

  To my mind, this is all a bunch of crap. Sorry, but starting a new bureaucracy to check on the existing bureaucracy is a smoke screen. They'll find some meaningless things to prove how valuable they are, and how they need a bigger budget to find more waste. All crap.

[lildog]

I don?t know? I was looking at this website a little closer and I kind of like the concept.  I can see the problem with it as it?s expecting the government to police themselves, which we already know they are incapable of doing.  But the idea of actually looking to see where we are spending money ineffectively is at least a start in the right direction.

Personally I think this concept could be better imposed on a local or possibly even a state level where people have a little say over their governments.  And I don?t think it would work for the government to rate effectiveness?

What I could see is a local government posting statistics about programs and events they put on with tax dollars.  If people can see they spend say $80,000 on something only 20 people use it would make it easier to cut these items from town budgets without the knee jerkers getting all in a tithe about it when those 20 people show up at a town meeting all upset when their service is put on the chopping block.  Facts are stubborn things, so if you can show it?s costing the town $4,000 per person for a service, that I would hope would go a long way in defending it being cut from a budget.