MUSK vs FEDERAL LEVIATHAN

 

[Published in the Sunday Guardian of India and Newsmax]

The United States (U.S.) must confront Federal Government spending.  U.S. national debt is now $35.7 trillion USD.  This is larger than the country’s $29 trillion USD Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Paying interest on the debt now exceeds $658 billion USD a year.  This debt service is becoming an increasingly large part of annual spending for the Federal Government.

Reducing the size and cost of government is a major priority for former President, Donald Trump.

He is promoting Elon Musk’s plan to find and cut trillions of dollars in Federal Government waste.

Musk will only succeed if he moves boldly and learns from the past.  His current plan to build a bureaucracy to fight bureaucracy will end in frustration.

The Federal bureaucracy has fended off countless similar efforts.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan established something similar to Musk’s proposed effort.  The Grace Commission was charged with identifying and eradicating waste. Reagan first used the phrase, “Drain the Swamp” as part of the Commission’s mission.

Businessman, J. Peter Grace, formed the President’s Private Sector Survey for Cost Control (PPSSCC) as a separate organization funded by private sources. Over 150 prominent business leaders volunteered their time as overseers and members of the PPSSCC Task Forces. Its 36 task forces generated 2,478 recommendations that identified $424 billion USD ($1,243 billion in 2024 value) to be saved in three years. Congress ignored them all. 

Earlier government waste initiatives include the 1974-76 Commission on Federal Paperwork.  It was designed to assess paperwork burdens and implement the Paperwork Reduction Act.  The Commission employed hundreds of people to review government forms and processes.

This was my first job in Washington, DC.  As a graduate student at American University, I was a management analyst for the Housing Task Force.  One of my most surreal findings was a 36 foot (12 meter) long flow chart for applying to build government subsidized housing. The report’s 800 recommendations were issued and vanished.  Very few of the recommendations were implemented.

Vice President Al Gore led the “National Partnership for Reinventing Government (NPR)” initiative under President Bill Clinton.  It intended “to make the federal government work better, cost less, and get results Americans care about". During its five years, it was a catalyst for several operational changes, including the elimination of over 100 programs, the use of performance measurements, and expanding technology.

However, it promised savings of $207 billion USD never materialized.

There are other ways to rein in government waste.  They just haven’t been used.

Every year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and 73 Department and Agency based Inspector General Offices issue reports.  Annually they uncover over $650 billion USD in waste.   These reports include recommended actions.  Virtually none of them are implemented.

One example: Improper payments (payments that are made incorrectly) cost the U.S. over $200 billion USD a year. The GAO estimates that the U.S. government has lost almost $2.4 trillion USD in simple payment errors over the last two decades.  No action has been taken.

Every year outsiders expose government waste.

Senator Rand Paul issues his Annual “Festivus Report” each December.  It focuses on dubious grants and contracts.  His 2023 report revealed the U.S. government paid $900 billion for worthless research, fraudulent claims, and subsidies to domestic millionaires and foreign tyrants. Some of his specific findings included: an National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill, Barbies used as proof of ID for receiving COVID Paycheck Protection Program funds, $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt, and $200 million to ‘struggling artists’ like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne.

Dr. Rand Paul Releases 2023 ‘Festivus’ Report on Government Waste - Senator Rand Paul

Senator James Lanford issues his “Federal Fumbles Report” that highlights laughable waste.

Federal Fumbles - Senator James Lankford

Citizens Against Government Waste’s annual “Pig Book” illuminates questionable earmarks (now called Congressionally Directed Spending).

2024 Congressional Pig Book | Citizens Against Government Waste

The challenge is not finding the waste, but actually doing something about it.

There are steps that should be taken.

Step One – Clean House 

The U.S. Government’s Executive Branch includes mostly career personnel. They are selected through a competitive application process.  Once past a probationary period they can only be removed for cause. 

However, there are thousands of Executive Branch personnel who hold “policy positions” and are not eligible for career status protection.  These individuals are appointed by the President and his Office of Presidential Personnel (OPP).  They are “at will” employees and may be removed at any time for any reason.  The listing of these policy positions is known as the “Plum Book”.  It lists around 8,000 personnel that have limited or no career protection. 

As Director of Personnel for the Reagan Campaign and Transition, I looked at organizational charts for all career personnel who directly reported to policy officials or worked in policy offices.  There were also hundreds of agency and programmatic advisory boards and committees with their own support staff.  All of these people, upwards of 50,000, can be transferred or reassigned to clear operational pathways.

Only the Reagan Transition of 1980-81 completely cleared the policy and operational pathways.  This allowed the “Reagan Revolution” to move rapidly on a broad front to fundamentally change U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

An incoming Presidential Administration usually asks for the resignations from every political appointee from the prior administration.  However, some do not comply.  Other “holdovers” find career positions.  Some create consulting arrangements to remain on the public payroll.

The Executive Branch is awash with contractors. Many of them owe their allegiance to prior administrations. All have a vested interest in garnering more money for themselves.  A detailed review of these contracts and contractors can empty out large swaths of those loyal to the “status quo”.  Many of these contracts may be poorly written and administered.  Some may have no real value.  Ending these contracts will save billions.

Step Two – Take Control

A new President is like a ship’s captain.  They stand on the ship’s bridge to control its course.  In reality, this “captain” initially has no control beyond the bridge.  The size and complexity of the Federal Government hampers any change of course.  Too many activities have lives of their own, managed by individuals who are wedded to the “status quo”.

A new President needs to insert “Change Teams”, professionals skilled and committed to making the new Administration an immediate operational reality, into all Cabinet Departments and major agencies to instantly end the previous era.  This means full control of every key decision.  This covers all legal, regulatory, procurement, personnel, grants, and expenditures.

Nothing should happen until signed off by the Change Teams. 

Locking everything down also means revoking all delegations of authority and forcing every action, communication, and policy into the hands of the Change Teams immediately.  The Change Teams must literally patrol the corridors and rattle doorknobs to make sure no one is extending the actions of the prior era.  The first few days of Reagan’s Presidency found numerous examples of career employees refusing to yield.  In one case, a grant administrator had to be physically stopped from approving $350,000 USD of Carter era grants still sitting on his desk.

Bringing in new people who are loyal and competent is vital.  So is finding and promoting their career counterparts.  Whistleblowers exposed many problems during the Biden-Harris Administration.  They should become key advisors for identifying career allies and ferreting out resistance.

Both Republican and Democrat political appointees complain that their career colleagues often hide, spin, or fake facts.  This is not partisan.  Careerists want to protect their power, turf, reputation, and pet projects.  In many cases, careerists go through the motions of supporting the new Administration without doing anything.  Discovering and thwarting “Malicious Compliance” is a major challenge. This even happens within the Office of the President as this organization is filled with career employees. 

The transition planning process needs to start identifying trusted colleagues ASAP.  These may be whistleblowers who will embrace change, and confidential sources who have already proven themselves credible to Congress and media allies.  This first wave of trusted professionals identifies those they trust, and so on, until there is a critical mass to substantively shift policy and operational direction throughout the Executive Branch.

Step Three – Follow the Money

Approximately $1.028 trillion USD remains unexpended among general accounts and $461 billion USD remains unspent in trust funds.  While these funds are technically obligated, the fact that they have languished for years raises questions about their use and management.  These funds can be reclaimed and reused.

Look for the accounting code “1941” on federal agency accounts.  This code is for “unexpired unobligated balances”.  Another database is expired grant accounts. The GAO uncovered 7,500 just in Department of Health & Human Services’ Payment Management System.  Thousands of lapsed grant accounts are briming with money that will never be used but can be reclaimed.

The late Senator, Tom Coburn, exposed these funds in a detailed report, “Money for Nothing”. Nothing was done.  The U.S. media ignored his findings.

Microsoft Word - MONEY FOR NOTHING June 6 - final

Another code is the “Current Services Budget”, or “Baseline” budget. This outlines how much it costs to maintain existing services at current levels. It factors in various cost drivers - cost of living increases, escalation clauses in contracts, etc. Funding above “Current Service” is a spending increase.  This is a built in “ratchet effect” to expanding government.

Step Four – Eliminate Programs

Congress is the headwaters of expanding government.  Every year new programs, entities, and reporting requirements are established.  Members from both parties jealously guard their progeny.

Reviewing which ones are obsolete and duplicative may shame some in Congress to let them fade away.  Some may have lost their protection as their creator has left Congress. It took years for the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process to eliminate obsolete facilities.

Abolition opportunities abound for those programs directly created by the Executive Branch.  These have no basis in law but are created under the concept of “management by news release”. One day stories that result in never ending wasteful activity.  Other programs are training projects to promote specific ideological ends, such as climate change, critical race theory, and transgender awareness.

Eliminating whole Agencies and Departments requires more courage than exists in Congress. 

Step Five – Reduce Personnel

Instituting a real hiring freeze will rapidly drop numbers through retirements and “churn” (people leaving government to take nongovernment jobs).  Special exemptions will be required as specific vacancies for performing real tasks arise.  These waivers should only be granted by the Change Teams. Do not conduct mass firings or “Reduction in Force” (RIFs).  This triggers an array of procedural impediments and legal actions.

Reagan’s General Services Administration (GSA) cut nearly two thirds of its workforce in three years using a hiring freeze without a RIF. No legal action occurred.

Congress establishes programs and organizations, but rarely details how they are staffed or managed.  This is the best opportunity to delayer, reduce, and consolidate.

The private sector has found that 2-5 layers of management are more than adequate to assure success. Corporate performance “dashboards”, knowledge management, and empowering/enabling front line workers led to abolishing the antiquated concepts of span of control, pecking order, and fiefdoms.  It is time for the Federal Government to join the 21^st Century and eliminate up to 23 layers of obsolete command & control supervisors, countless numbers of extraneous planning staffs, and unnecessary program overseers. 

Americans deserve value from every dollar spent. 

They rarely receive even $0.12 USD of value per $1.00 USD. 

Many dollars spent generate no value at all.

It is long overdue to fight Federal Government waste and win.

 

GERALD CARMEN - LEGACY OF A LEADER

 

In March 1980, President Ronald Reagan asked Jerry Carmen to lead the General Services Administration (the GSA).

At the time the GSA was the Federal Government’s most corrupt and wasteful agency. 

Jerry’s mission, direct from President Reagan, was to clean-up the GSA or shut it down. 

Three years later the GSA had dropped from 36,000 employees to 12,000, thanks to the most thorough hiring freeze instituted under Reagan.

The GSA’s duplicative offices and obsolete operations were gone.

In its place was the best run Federal Agency in 1984. 

Jerry saved tens of billions of taxpayer dollars.

This is how bad it got. 

An employee cabal orchestrated an insider contract scam to renovate the 8^th Floor Utility Rooms at the GSA Headquarters Building.

It wasn’t until they requested a contract extension that people remembered the GSA Headquarters only had seven floors.

Jerry created a secure “war room” where we placed the entire GSA organization on its walls.

We then rolled plastic sheets over the personnel charts.  Using grease pencils, we “x-ed” out offices and operations that were flagged by Inspector General Reports and Whistle Blowers, marking them for extinction.  

Once personnel actions were recorded, we erased the notations.

When Leftist Congresswoman, Pat Schroeder, demanded our work files we were able to honestly say there were none.

Jerry was “laser focused” on his mission.

A Union official met with Jerry to protest the hiring freeze.

A few minutes into the meeting, Jerry picked up the bowl of Jelly Belly candy on his desk and began picking out and eating the red ones.

The Union official noticed this and commented, “You really like those red ones.  What makes them so special?”

Jerry answered, “The meeting is over when the red ones are gone”.

Jerry’s main achievement was creating a business-based culture grounded in honesty and integrity.

The Director of the Springfield Supply Depot called Jerry declaring that he needed to buy 12 additional forklifts to meet the new work deadlines.

Jerry immediately drove himself to the Depot.  He rushed past the guards and raced through the warehouse counting twenty idle forklifts. 

The Director was immediately removed from his position and fired within the week.

Jerry embodied the commitment to excellence, the courage of convictions, and the bravery of a true leader. 

Jerry’s accomplishments, and how he accomplished them, will inspire generations to come.

BUDGET BACCHANAL 2015

Also published at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/budget-bacchanal-2015/article/2571132 and https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/budget-bacchanal-scot-faulkner?trk=prof-post


The biggest fiasco of the year is about to occur. No, it is not a Presidential debate. It is the travesty of the budget battle for Fiscal 2016.


The budget battle will begin in earnest after Labor Day. Republicans will take things to the brink without a strategy or preparing their case for frugality. This is a recipe for disaster.


Republicans have been in charge of the entire Legislative Branch since their landslide victory on November 4, 2014. When Members of Congress adjourned for their five-week August Recess not one Appropriation Bill had passed. The House had passed only six of the required twelve Appropriation bills. The Senate had not taken one vote. After eight years of telling voters Republicans could govern better than Democrats the budgetary results are actually worse.


When Congress reconvenes on September 8, 2015 it will have only ten legislative days to avoid a government shut down or continuing resolution. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew also formally requested another raise in the Debt Ceiling. What have they been doing for nine months?


So far there has only been posturing about defunding federal support of Planned Parenthood and somehow punishing the Environmental Protection Agency for its obtuse overreach. The collective fiscal impact of these actions is microscopic. No Republican, not even any of the Presidential candidates, is offering real solutions to reining-in rampant government spending and debt.


At the same time, federal agencies are proceeding with their annual rite of spending over a third of their budgets in the last three months of the fiscal year. Each year, potential savings evaporate in an orgy of expedited procurements and questionable spending during the mad dash to spend every penny before midnight on September 30. No efforts at frugality here; agencies would rather guard their budgetary turf than save money for taxpayers.


Even Tony Scott, Obama’s Chief Information Officer for the Executive Branch, has called out his colleagues declaring the year end spending binge, “a mad dash to load up the shopping carts”. No Republican has raised their voice against year-end spending. Holding agencies to spending only 25 percent of their funds in the 4th quarter would save $105 billion a year.


It gets worse – the brinksmanship over spending and raising the debt ceiling ignores a set of mind boggling facts.

• Nearly a trillion dollars in unobligated funds are hiding in plain sight. Page 11, Table 1, of the Office of Management and Budget’s spreadsheets for assets and balances lists $909,122,000,000 as unspent and unobligated. President Obama is the first President since Lyndon Johnson to not require a “budget sweep” to return these orphaned funds to general use. There is no reason for a debt ceiling increase when they could resolve the matter by a push of a button.
• There is $650 billion dollars in annual documented waste that could guide budget cuts. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), and 73 Agency and Department Inspector Generals, publish an average of 9,000 reports every year that document this waste to specific accounts and programs. These public reports also provide specific recommendations for how to stop the ongoing hemorrhaging of tax dollars. In 2015, the House Appropriators held 128 hearings relating to agency funding requests. Only four of those hearings included Inspector Generals. None included the GAO. None of these hearings included outside oversight groups who document and publicize government waste.
• None of the House passed Appropriation bills call for hiring freezes or any slowdown in expanding the number of bureaucrats. Each year the Federal Executive Branch loses over 60,000 employees to retirements or voluntary departures. There was not one single hearing by Republicans to discuss ways to stop the treadmill of filling every vacancy no matter how obsolete or redundant. Federal agencies have 9 to 23 layers of management between front line workers and top officials. Are every one of these layers and every functionary needed? Republicans have never asked this question. An across the board hiring freeze would save $350 billion a year.

Let the games begin!


[Scot Faulkner served as Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and on President Reagan’s White House Staff.]

The Budget Bunker

President Obama has the Republicans, and the nation, right where he wants them. Everyone is talking about how budget cuts hurt people.

Obama has embraced the advice given by his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” The Sequester was not supposed to have happened. Now that it has, Obama and the Democrats are doing all they can to eradicate opposition to government’s eternal growth.

The Sequester was supposed to be the “mutually assured destruction” of sacred cows for both Democrats and Republicans. This intentional apocalypse was designed to force all sides in the budget debate to find common ground. However, in the summer of 2011, both sides assumed they would completely triumph in the November 2012 elections. This would have given either side the ability to move their agenda unfettered by their opponents. The electorate voted to maintain the status quo, leaving gridlock and the Sequester to move all sides to a crisis of their own making.

The Democrats figured out how to make gourmet lemonade from this pile of lemons, while the Republicans retreated into their Budget Bunker.

Democrats had the home field advantage. They had just spent two years painting Republicans as only interested in protecting the very wealthy. They also spent months building their case that the only thing wrong with the Federal Government was that it did not have enough money. The expiration of the Bush era tax cuts on January 1, 2013 allowed the first post-election battle to occur on turf most friendly to Democrats. Republicans were forced to give ground or lose all their ground on the revenue issue.

Sequester visuals also favor the Democrats. There are plenty of compelling back drops for scaring people into believing soldiers, first responders, teachers, daycare workers, and park rangers are going to vanish. Even though the actual Sequester legislation, the Budget Control Act of 2011, only sets general budget targets, both sides agreed to implement the bureaucratic equivalent of losing weight by cutting off fingers instead of dieting.

Republicans could have countered all of this. They had the capability. Senator Tom Coburn’s annual Waste Book detailed many ways to reduce hundred of billions in government spending without pain. Agency Inspector Generals and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) publish over 9,500 reports a year detailing over $650 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse. However, the GOP remains in their Budget Bunker, content to fall into the sequester impact trap by scrabbling to move funds around and making overly vague pronouncements about spending.

There are other missed opportunities. The Executive Branch normally has attrition of 60,000+ employees a year. Much of this occurs due to retirement. Currently, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has a retirement processing backlog of 41,103. There were an additional 20,374 retirement applications just in the month of February. This acceleration of aging and retiring federal civilian workers provides an historic opportunity to rethink positions and reduce costs. Does every retired worker need to be replaced? Is every layer of management (up to 23 layers in some agencies) really needed in the 21st Century? Can functions and offices be consolidated as staffs dwindle and information age technology improves span of control for supervisors?

The answer to all these questions is yes. However, only a few Republicans, notably Senators Tom Coburn and Rand Paul, are drawing attention to vacancies being posted since the Sequester. However, even here Republicans miss the point. They offer up low level front line positions for a hiring freeze when they should also be blocking new senior executives and managers who would not be missed and generate far more savings.

Republicans are squandering their precious few on air moments. There is no message discipline. What common points they do make either offer up conspiracy theories, blamestorming, or finding ways to protect the Defense Department. They refuse to admit that the Defense Department is just another bloated bureaucracy. By spending time protecting DOD waste they prove Obama’s case that any cut, not matter what size, is harmful.

Obama is playing the long game. He is not just looking at shaping the 2014 battlefield or even the 2016 one. Obama and the Democrats are using Sequester, and all the other budget battles, to reverse the Reagan Revolution. Reagan strategically shifted America’s political landscape when he declared, "Government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem." With every comment, every action, every minute, Obama and the Democrats are countering this with “Government is not just the solution to our problem it is our salvation for everything.”

Republicans need to leave their bunker and start offering up ideas and solutions that appeal to common sense and common ground.

9,528 Opportunities Ignored

America should be having a serious discussion on the size and cost of our Federal Government, and what to do about a debt burden that has already sailed our nation off the fiscal cliff. Instead, disinformation has buried what little integrity is left among the participants.

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) recently spoke on the Senate floor: "I am not going to keep cutting the discretionary budget, which by the way is not out of control, despite what you hear on Fox News."

There are many reasons why Senator Landrieu is wrong. In fact, there are 9,528 reasons. That is the approximate number of audits and investigations conducted by career employees during 2012 on federal programs, projects, agencies, and contracts. The General Accountability Office (GAO) issued 768 reports, which contained 1,807 recommendations for operational improvement. One can also glean from public documents approximately 8,760 audits and investigations conducted by the 73 Inspector General Offices among the cabinet departments and independent agencies of the Executive Branch.

Every one of these 9,528 efforts found waste, fraud, and abuse. Every one of these reports identified opportunities for improving operations and made specific recommendations. The Department of Labor’s Inspector General’s Office conducted 66 audits that identified $2.4 billion in waste. The office also opened 585 investigative cases, obtaining 633 indictments and 433 convictions. They also recovered $398 million that had been criminally diverted. There is similar documentation of mismanagement, inefficiency, and ineffectiveness within every report issued by the GAO and the 73 Inspectors Generals. In 2012, these reports documented over $650 billion in waste. That translates into at least $6.5 trillion in possible spending cuts, over the next ten years, without harming one legitimate beneficiary of government services.

It is time for every politician and pundit to admit that there is definitely “room for improvement” in the way the federal government manages our tax dollars. Tragically for America, very few of these 9,528 reports receive any public airing in Congress. Liberals do not want to admit there is “room for improvement” because that will pull the rug out from under their argument for more taxes. Conservatives do not want to admit there is “room for improvement” because that will pull the rug out from under their argument for ideological cuts. Conservatives would also have to admit that there is more than $100 billion wasted annually in the Defense Department. This waste has nothing to do with keeping America safe, in fact, it degrades our safety.

Everyone should be upset that even one penny of tax dollars is misspent. That goes for whether you love a program/project or hate it. Unfortunately, no politician or pundit is willing to rise above their partisan mud-wrestling to think about our country. In rare situations the level of corruption and dysfunction created a bipartisan mandate for strategic change. This happened at the General Services Administration in the early 1980s when years of multi-million dollar criminal activity, and 48 convictions, allowed for a top to bottom rethinking of the agency. The result reduced staff by 20,000 and saved $3 billion. This also happened in the House of Representatives in the mid-1990s when high profile scandals, and the first change in party control in forty years, allowed for a fundamental reinventing of Congressional operations. The result cut support staff by 48%, established financial integrity, and saved $148 million.

Times have become too partisan to start with strategically rethinking Executive functions and management. It would be horrendous to wait for epic scandal or corruption to trigger another brief moment of bipartisan cooperation. What we are left with is cajoling everyone to admit there is “room for improvement”. Senators and Congressmen have 9,528 reports, generated by objective, nonpolitical, professionals to guide where and how to cut waste. Once the recommendations are implemented, and the management improvements are in place, they can debate whether to reallocate the savings. In the meantime, America’s debt bomb will be partially defused without harming programs, services, or recipients.

Can we all agree that this would be a great way for Congress to spend the next two years?

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights

By Scot Faulkner & Jonathan Riehl

How did you spend the last 806 days?

If you were a Congressional Republican prior to your Williamsburg retreat, you were doing nothing. Nothing productive, at any rate. You spent this time ceding the political landscape to President Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Your are waiting for an Inaugural Address to respond to, while allowing tone-deaf and clueless pollsters and lobbyists to speak for the Party.

Since decisively winning the November 2, 2010 elections, Republicans in Congress, and their acolytes in the conservative media, have made sure to miss 806 days of opportunity to define themselves and communicate a compelling alternative platform. This is not a choice; it is a reflection of political reality: They have no platform. Because they have no coherent idea of who they are. The American people sense this. Increasingly, moderates and centrists are abandoning them because of it.

The recent Pew Survey shows Americans disapprove of Republican Congressional leadership by 66% while only 19% approved. That is a staggering 47 point negative. Gallup’s survey is equally bad with 25% approving and 67% disapproving for a 42 point negative gap.

These dreadful scores are only part of the problem. During the last 806 days President Obama and Congressional Democrats have framed the Fiscal Cliff/Debt Ceiling/Budget battle in ways highly favorable to their cause while painting Republicans into a microscopic corner. This is smart rhetorical strategy, to be sure.

Politics often comes down to defining the terms of the battle, something both parties have excelled at during different moments in history. The Democrats are the current masters of rhetoric. Democrats, even radicals, are now called “Progressives”. Government spending is now called “investment,” thanks to a spin factory gem from Bill Clinton. Spending cuts of any magnitude are dismissed as damaging to America’s economic recovery. There is also the unchallenged assertion that there have already been more than enough budget cuts, but no where near enough tax increases.

Our current Republicans tilt at windmills and straw men, assailing the “Main Stream Media” (which excludes, of course, the most popular cable network, Fox News) for their rout in the budget battle. They continue to embrace the parallel universe of Fox and conservative Talk Radio asserting that these “news” outlets are being drowned out by the “mainstream.” Never has Orwellian double-talk been more obvious -- or harmful to political discourse.

During the last 806 days, Republicans have been annoyingly vague about government waste and the need to cut spending. They trumpet their ideology, but ideology is not governance -- and Americans continue to see the President as more competent in that task. The problem is that the GOP never issued a meaningful indictment or offered a prosecution brief. Just saying there is waste does not make it so. Endlessly repeated talking points about “limited government” do not inspire, do not confer confidence, and do not offer hope to a still struggling nation.

While Republicans remain unfocused, the Democrats have created a multimedia echo chamber that has established memes relating to fairness and collective action. Republicans, on the other hand, offer nothing but confrontational bluster. Their weak, ineffective, and mostly nonexistent defense has left them marginalized and demonized. The entire body politic suffers as a result; Democracy only functions when robust factions confront each other in rational discourse. The authors here have differing political views on important matters, but are of one mind on this central point.

Republicans could have made a difference. Starting on November 3, 2010, they could have been building their case.   Every time a Republican was in front of a camera or microphone they could have issued compelling examples about non-performing government contractors getting billions in bonuses, about hundreds of billions more sitting unused in countless agency accounts, or cited any one of the thousands of reports documenting waste published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the 73 Inspector General offices.  This would have put forward a viable vision of governance that differs from the status quo. This is complicated, of course, because the status quo is not just the last four years, but also the eight under Republicans who grew government and spent America into oblivion.

Perhaps this is what the psychologists call cognitive dissonance -- Republicans are now mostly unwilling to hold hearings on government spending or mismanagement, because many of them blindly supported Bush-era spending boondoggles both foreign and domestic. Bereft of principle, and caught in hypocrisy of their own making, Republicans have little to stand on. The GOP did not even hold hearings on Senator Tom Coburn’s annual Waste Report, a longtime staple of reasonable oversight. Only CSPAN’s BookTV gave Coburn a proper forum to discuss his exhaustive and highly credible research on government waste.

Reestablishing Republican relevance must include atoning for embracing wasteful spending during the Bush era. In one amazing example of “Bush party line”, Republicans on the House Oversight panel minimized $6 billion in hundred dollar bills vanishing from the Bagdad Airport while Democrats raised concerns about the money being stolen and possibly funding terrorism. Republicans lose credibility when they are more concerned about who is doing damaging things instead of the damaging thing itself. Waste is waste; corruption is corruption; no matter who is doing it. To say anything different is abandoning your moral core.

Republicans met in Williamsburg to develop a strategy for the coming budget battles, and unfortunately it looks like more showmanship instead of statesmanship. They should have spent this time finding their minds and souls.

FISCAL FOLLIES

Washington policy officials and pundits take note – you have all flunked Governing 101, Management 101, Civil Discourse 101, Budgeting 101, Accountability 101, and Reality 101. Republicans also failed Communications 101 & Politics 101. Democrats passed these courses with honors in creative fiction writing.

No one is telling the truth about anything relating to the Fiscal Cliff. Americans will begin suffering from Washington’s mass delusion and hysteria by mid January 2012. Wage earners will see a reduction in take home pay with their first pay checks. Some government contractors will get termination notices around the same time because of the consciously severe cuts under the Sequester.

The damage from going over the Fiscal Cliff will remain limited because of the possibility of retroactive fixes being dated back to January 1, 2013. However, this expectation unravels at the end of February if there is no budget deal. Even a superficial, “kick the can down the road again” deal would avoid this expectation cliff. This gives everyone two months to do something before the bottom really falls out.

How did America get in this mess?

Blame the Republicans – starting in 1995, the Republicans in Congress could have held wall-to-wall hearings exposing trillions of dollars in ongoing waste, fraud, and abuse. Mountains of Inspector General Reports, Government Accountability Office Reports, and watch dog organization reports would have been easy pickings for years. By exposing the mind-boggling array of how Americans’ money is squandered would have built a mandate for real change. Republicans never pursued this course. In fact, they remained tongue-tied on how to cut spending through the 2012 elections. When they did offer ideas, they went for ideological cuts, like Public Broadcasting.

Republicans also made every effort to box themselves into a stereotype of defending the rich and abandoning the poor. They never explained that every penny wasted hurts everyone. These pennies include nearly $1 trillion a year in outrageous tax loopholes for corporations, the wealthy, and even foreign gamblers.

Blame the Democrats – the Democrats have refused to focus on spending because the moment they acknowledge that spending can be cut they lose their argument that the federal government needs more of our money. They made budget cutting a partisan issue. This is truly sad for America. Way back in the 1970s, Senator Proxmire (D-WI) issued “Gold Fleece Awards” exposing government waste. Liberal journalists like Jack Anderson railed against waste where ever it was found. Even the National Enquirer had fun with “goofy grants”. Waste was waste and the public embraced aggressive oversight across the political spectrum. This all ended during the Administration of George HW Bush when Democrats realized extorting more taxes required silence on how the money was really being spent.

Blame the media – reporters and commentators love a crisis. They embrace false deadlines and refuse to discuss that these deadlines are based upon fiction, because their countdown clocks and their breathlessly chasing after every rumor attracts viewers and readers. There is no incentive for telling the truth - that everything could be avoided within seconds if everyone sobered up and grew-up.

America is confronted with a parade of “naked emperors” who trumpet that what they are doing is real, and that we are fools if we do not comprehend how hard it is to get off the treadmill of more debt, more taxes, and more spending. Who will be the first voice in the crowd to begin laughing at them and demanding honesty?

Raising Revenue Responsibly

This article was published on the History News Network

 http://hnn.us/articles/how-solve-fiscal-cliff-problem-responsibly

There are three legs to the stool of Federal Fiscal Solvency - Cut spending, entitlement reform, and revenue generation. Few of the Washington power players are realistically discussing any of these, but revenue has generated the most polarized rhetoric.

All our lives are impacted by the way our Federal Government raises the $2.9 trillion it needs to function. That is why it is important that any revenue element of a “Fiscal Cliff” deal is weighed not only for the amount, but for its “tax incidence”.

“Tax incidence” charts the various ways government amasses its revenue and how these ways impact individuals, industries, demographics, and “geographics”. Our current “progressive rate” income tax system and the strategic reform proposals of the flat tax, fair tax, and Value Added Tax (VAT) all generate significantly different impacts on our individual spending habits and our overall national economy.

Tax policy punishes or promotes economic activity either with intended or unintended consequences. Government tax policy has become social policy, resulting in an amazingly complex and voluminous tax code. The federal tax code is over 5.6 million words or 3,458 pages – seven times longer than the Bible, depending on the edition. Each page, sentence, phrase, and punctuation of this Tax Code, and its countless regulations, instructions, and manuals, determine winners and losers within the economy. These regulations are further subject to equally voluminous interpretation through administrative and judicial rulings.

There are nearly an infinite number of ways individuals, companies, and an array of other entities, can navigate this tax landscape. Lost in this morass is the original intent for many of these pathways and how they are supposed to positively guide economic behavior while raising desired revenue.

Democrats obsess over raising tax rates on the wealthy, and Republicans remain vague about “tax reform”. Thankfully, one person has conducted a detailed review of the Federal Tax Code and found $992 billion in possible tax saving/new revenue over the next ten years – without raising tax rates.

In July 2011, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) issued his “Back in Black” report. http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/?p=deficit-reduction

“Back in Black” is a 624-page detailed, line by line, analysis of how the Federal Government can cut waste, achieve operational efficiency, and find the revenue needed to get out of debt.

Coburn’s final section (pages 558-624) addresses how decades of tax policy decisions have created a multitude of opportunities for special interests to avoid taxes, or obtain tax incentives and subsidies, while harming the general populace (pushing the tax burden onto others and driving up the debt).

Reviewing some of Senator Coburn’s examples of how our tax code runs amok is instructive and sobering. Coburn’s ideas represent the most economically neutral opportunities for new revenue and should be part of any strategic “Fiscal Cliff” agreement.

Subsidizing millionaires - Individuals with over a million dollars in income benefit from more than $7 billion in tax relief annually through the mortgage interest deduction. Under current law, homeowners can deduct the interest paid on home mortgages for primary residences and vacation homes loans of up to $1 million, resulting in lost federal revenue of nearly $88 billion. Even a yacht can be considered a second residence—as long as the luxury boat has a “sleeping, cooking, and toilet facility” and an individual lives in it for at least two weeks a year.

Subsidizing foreigner gamblers - Americans must pay taxes on their winnings at horse and dog tracks in the United States, but not foreigners. This deprives the Federal Government of $30 million over the next ten years.

Subsidizing Hollywood – In order to encourage Hollywood to produce feature films and television programs in the United States, entertainment companies may deduct up to $15 million in certain costs associated with the production of television episodes and movies where at least 75 percent of the compensation costs are for work performed on U.S. soil. Allowing Hollywood to benefit from this accelerated cost recovery results in federal revenue losses of at least $30 million a year.

Allowing fraud - Within the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), individuals without a valid Social Security Number (SSN) claim $1.780 billion a year, or $17.8 billion over ten years. Congress has not provided the IRS with adequate authority to deny these fraudulent claimants.

No documented impact – The 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) is supposed to hold every federal activity accountable for actually achieving intended results. GPRA is routinely ignored, not only for federal expenditures, but for tax expenditures. Two examples are Empowerment Zones (EZs) and Renewal Communities (RCs). EZs and RCs are federally designated poverty or distressed areas where businesses and local governments receive federal grants and tax incentives in exchange for locating and developing in these zones. Nearly $1.8 billion in grant incentives provided to EZs and RCs have been allocated since 1993. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Inspector General at Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have not found any tangible improvement in community outcomes.

Bailouts without end - The IRS has excluded major Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) recipients from certain tax obligations for potentially the next 20 years. These TARP recipients may avoid paying more than $90 billion combined in taxes because of this special tax treatment. This includes AIG, which has accumulated over $25.6 billion in carry-forwards and other tax-deferred assets; New GM, which will avoid as much as $45.4 billion in taxes because of the Treasury Department‘s exemptions; and Citi, which will use $23.2 billion in carry-forwards and other credit carryovers in just one year.

Malfeasance - The Internal Revenue Service found nearly 100,000 civilian federal employees were delinquent on their federal income taxes, owing over $1 billion in unpaid federal income taxes. The federal government has also failed to collect more than $62 billion in penalties owed by swindlers, criminals and others cited for violating federal laws and regulations and this amount has increased dramatically.

It is truly sad that none of these issues were discussed during the 2012 campaign. Republicans, in particular, could have avoided being branded as coddling millionaires. Each side is equally guilty of over politicizing these serious management and economic issues. The fact that Senator Coburn’s published report has remained in the policy wilderness for the last seventeen months is unconscionable.

Fiscal Flim Flam

The following appeared in the Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/congress-white-house-budget-trickery-now-backfiring/article/2514965

The only way the real fiscal cliff can be addressed is for everyone in Washington, D.C., to stop talking about the fake one. Here's the reality: The bomb is about to explode in the hands of its own maker. There is no disaster looming, only one created by the same Congress and the same president who are now voicing dire warnings about sequestration. The coming demise of federal programs is a manufactured problem, designed to meet the partisan needs of each side of the current debate.

Congress and the White House assert that $1.2 trillion must be cut from the federal budget over the next 10 years. This multiyear effort commences on Jan. 1, 2013, with $50 billion in cuts from the Defense Department and $70 billion from discretionary domestic programs. Everyone in Washington, D.C., including the pundits, has been creating increasingly apocalyptic visions of what will happen should these cuts occur.

It never had to be this way. There is currently $2 trillion in unexpended balances arrayed throughout the federal government for the current fiscal year. According to both the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, $687 billion of these balances are completely unobligated.

Again, in 2012, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, and the 73 department and agency inspector general offices identified more than $650 billion in annual, ongoing waste. The vast majority of these findings, and the actions recommended to address them, have never been acted upon by either the executive or legislative branches.

Finally, there's the federal government's legendary and perpetually unaddressed inefficiency. Large private corporations, like Walmart, have at most five layers of management between their front line service personnel and top executives. The federal government has upwards of 23 layers.

Given these three facts, why are our political leaders saying that federal spending cannot be cut, and that they must have more of our earnings and wealth to make ends meet?

The sequestration cuts are a bogeyman, specifically designed to inflict as much damage as possible on American citizens. For example, 53 percent of the sequestration cuts within the Department of Education are within the Elementary & Secondary Education Act programs -- funds sent to states to supplement the salaries and hiring of teachers. The sequestration cuts 60.9 percent of these funds. That is why so many politicians and pundits are predicting massive teacher layoffs. Meanwhile, the sequestration targets only 4 percent of the Department of Education's headquarters budget. The bureaucrats wouldn't be missed, but they are safe. The teachers will be missed, and they are ground zero for cuts.

What should have been a serious management exercise has become a race to see who can paint the worst scenario should budget talks fail. Democrats cite the collapse of social services and education, while Republicans predict massive layoffs of defense contractors and the hollowing out of our military. Both sides predict chaos in the economy leading to a second recession.

Democrats won the election, so they are now in the best position to use this crisis that both parties manufactured. They are setting off a stampede for more tax revenue that Congress will probably just spend away anyway. Had Republicans won, they would probably be calling for ideologically focused spending cuts (like public broadcasting) to prevent the ruin of the military.

Congress and the White House designed the sequestration to wreak destruction on government services and the economy as a way to create a false sense of urgency for a substantive budget solution. Their plan, if it was a plan, has backfired.

Breaking Bad – Avoiding the Fiscal Cliff

A shorter verison of this column appeared in the Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/breaking-bad-avoiding-the-fiscal-cliff/article/2512227

The impending “fiscal cliff” is the most thoroughly predicted disaster since the end of the Mayan Calendar. The problem is no one is willing to design and implement a real solution that has any chance of bipartisan support.

The cycle of dysfunction has existed for decades. The Federal Budget Act of 1974 created what was supposed to be a rational process for planning, approving, and implementing government spending. It quickly became an empty paper exercise as appropriations ignored the Budget Resolutions. When the difference became embarrassingly stark, the Senate simply gave up on passing one at all. Additional budget reform legislation was passed and immediately ignored. Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, Budget Reconciliation, and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), all gather dust. Annual budget deals, and continuing resolutions, put off the day of reckoning. Reagan’s 1982 budget deal resulted in more revenue and no spending cuts.

Administrations annually create a new budget. Hidden inside the hundreds of pages is the “Current Services Budget”, or “Baseline”. This outlines how much it costs to maintain existing services at current levels. It factors in various cost drivers - cost of living increases, escalation clauses in contracts, etc. Budget battles are fought over the increase above current service levels. When officials propose budget cuts they are talking about cutting the increase, not cutting current service funding levels. Therefore, there is a built in “ratchet effect” to expanding government spending.

The latest looming cliff is supposed to wrench the Washington policy players out of denial and avoidance, forcing them to actually do something real. This will not happen unless certain things change.

Start with the basics – Use the “Current Service Analysis” levels as the budget framework. Administration and opposing budgets can be aspirations compared against the true baseline. That will level the playing field and keep everyone honest about what is really an increase and what is really a reduction.

Rise above ideology - Both Democrats and Republicans contributed to the cliff. Both sides spend like there is no tomorrow. Both sides embrace “sacred cows”. Both sides live in a world where their people are angels and their opponents are demons. A good first step is to admit that each side has some good ideas and each side has looney ones.

Democrats need to understand that even their most cherished domestic assistance programs are riddled with waste and inefficiency. Republicans need to realize that the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security are just as bloated and dysfunctional as the liberal programs they assail.

Make Inspector Generals and the GAO “rock stars” – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has 3,100 employees. There are also 73 Inspector General Offices embedded in Cabinet Departments and major agencies. All these offices are filled with highly trained, dedicated, objective civil servants who document waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiency as well as recommend actions to eradicate and prevent future squandering of public resources. They document over $650 billion in waste annually. That is $6.5 trillion in cost avoidance and direct spending reductions over the ten years everyone uses to discuss the fiscal cliff. Except for a rare instance, these reports, and their detailed recommendations, are universally ignored.

The next Congress will be as grid locked as the last few. Partisan votes in the House will die in a Senate unable to muster sixty votes to move legislation. Then there are possible White House vetoes.

Therefore, why not check ideology at the door and embrace stewarding public funds? One hopes overwhelming numbers of Members from both parties, as well as the White House, would agree that waste is waste. Pass budget bills that specifically mandate GAO and IG recommendations are implemented and corresponding amounts of documented waste, fraud, and abuse are cut from programs and agencies. Resurrecting effective Congressional Oversight is long over due.

Having everyone discover that they can all agree on something will shift from the culture of confrontation to a culture of collaboration. Beginning swimmers start in the shallow end of a pool and then move into deeper waters as their skills and confidence improve. Congress and the White House could move into more complex and contentious waters as their ability to respectfully and constructively disagree improves.

Allow for public input - “Crowd sourcing” is being successfully used in several European countries to harness collective wisdom for public policy. Using either an ongoing “crowd sourcing” process, or an annual referendum tied to tax returns (like the Presidential Campaign fund check-off), citizens could either identify what to cut or what to fund. Their input would initially be advisory and mature into binding guidance as seriousness and sincerity are displayed by all involved.

If Congress, the White House, the agencies, and the media, do not explore these ideas, America faces a crisis that will dwarf the chaos in Greece.

[Scot Faulkner was Chief Administrative Officer for the U.S. House of Representatives. http://citizenoversight.blogspot.com/]



Creating the Will for the Way

It is clearly time for Americans to stage an intervention to save our nation. The signs of addictive destructive behavior are everywhere. Denial and avoidance are wide spread. The evidence of dysfunction and its consequences are overwhelming.

Both Romney and Obama have asserted that Washington, DC cannot be changed from the inside. They are both right. Washington, DC is filled with a maze of revolving doors that link all branches of government to special interests, contractors, think tanks, lobbyists, academia, and the media. The inhabitants of this crony culture display hyper-partisanship to those outside the Capital Beltway, but work together, like lymph nodes, to isolate and eradicate common sense, accountability, and rational solutions.

The way forward has been known for decades. The will to move forward is simply not there.

Americans have a chance to stage an intervention in the remaining weeks of the 2012. They can demand real answers to real questions during the candidate debates that will occur at the Presidential, Congressional, state, and local levels over the coming weeks. Americans should make it clear that they will not vote for candidates, from either party, who dodge these questions or offer only pandering pablum.

Question One – Will you admit that there is a huge amount of waste in government? Will you admit that this waste is far more than the amounts required for balancing the budget?

Countless Inspector General and Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports have documented, in detail, that over $650 billion a year is wasted at the federal level. That is $6.5 trillion in savings over ten years – almost six times more than the feared sequestration and sixteen times more than was to be cut in the original 2011 budget/debt deal. Voters should scream the next time a government official or media pundit wrings their hands over how hard it is to cut spending or how the world will come to an end if one penny is removed.

Intervention is about forcing the subject to move past denial to confronting their problem. Everyone, across the political spectrum, needs to admit that there are numerous opportunities to substantially cut even their most favored government programs. Waste is waste. The political elite need to stop “blame-storming” about who is at fault and work together to immediately implement Inspector General and GAO recommendations. These $650+ billion in annual savings would make major strides in paying down our national debt.

Question Two – Will you develop tangible ways for normal citizens to have direct input into the running of their government?

Representative democracy ceased being representative years ago. That is the one common thread that spawned the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements. Pundits and politicians did everything they could to demonize both movements, making sure they did not join forces. A convergence of these protest movements could have changed America.

Direct input into our government, at all levels, can start with “crowd sourcing”. Corporate America embraced this early on in the social media revolution. New flavors, products, and Super Bowl ads are now being developed from structured “crowd sourcing”. Wikipedia and other websites realize that open input distills and organizes information far better and faster than waiting on individual scholars.

Why not have Congress and federal agencies establish crowd source websites where concerned citizens can identify and shape issues? This could move policy dialogue along far more efficiently than having tens of millions of disparate emails flood Congressional offices.

“Crowd sourcing” could also be used for budget cutting. In 1989, and four times since, Congress realized that it could not rise above the parochial interests of individual Members and turned to an outside process to close and consolidate obsolete military bases. The Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) has closed over 350 installations, saving tens of billions of dollars.

Why not create a “Budget BRAC”? The parochial interests of Members, and their collective hyper-partisan posturing, have rendered them incapable of stewarding public resources. Citizens could either identify what to cut or what to fund. A limited version of this was initiated by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Why not expand this good first step to the entire federal budget? It could either be an ongoing “crowd sourcing” exercise or an annual referendum tied to tax returns, like the Presidential Campaign fund check-off.

These basic questions, if asked, may result in enough elected officials “seeing the light”. Unless something changes, Americans will lose no matter who wins in November.

Deficit Disorder

The following was written for the History News Network.

http://hnn.us/articles/deficit-disorder

“We are heading for the fiscal cliff!” is the current warning in political circles. Unfortunately, Washington policy makers are like Wile-E-Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons – we are already over this fiscal cliff – but few people have looked down.


How did the Federal Government end up in this situation? How can we scramble back on to solid ground?

Both answers are complex and long term.
How did we end up over the fiscal cliff?

Our reality check starts with the progressive era [1877-1920]. The definitive book on this era is Robert H. Wiebe’s brilliant The Search of Order. His masterful work reviewed how and why the Progressive Movement began and then explains how this complex movement proceeded to shape the politics of the 20th century.

Wiebe discusses how President Woodrow Wilson formulated the “New Freedom” to bring together all the diverse interests and agendas of the emerging factions within the Progressive movement:

“Scarcely a significant question of the era did not fall somewhere within its scope, and no well-organized group was denied...the Democrats could take pride in a most dexterous management. The new majority had proved surprisingly sensitive to organized pressures from all sources, and the President had shown exceptional talent for administrative compromise, the essence of bureaucratic leadership.” [1]

Wiebe then writes:

“In Washington and in the major cities, executive direction was an accomplished fact by the war years [1914-1918]. Although many of the bureaus and departments of the progressive era had yet to define their functions precisely, they were at least entrenched. Nineteen sixteen marked “the completion of the federal scientific establishment” covering industry, agriculture, and an assortment of public services, and much the same was true of the basic regulatory mechanisms in both Federal and state governments” [2]

Wiebe summarizes the legacy of the era: “Progressivism contained an inherent expansive thrust, partly from its need for ever-broader legislation, partly from its all-conquering optimism, but even more from its faith in method. If the right technique guaranteed the right results, no problem, whatever the size and scope, could withstand its magic.” [3]

For those in the TEA Party who assert we must “reverse the last four years”, they need to realize that lasting governmental change requires addressing core dogma from the last 98 years.

The New Deal of the 1930s took the Progressives’ governmental expansionist concept even further. President Franklin Roosevelt instilled into the maturing Progressive movement his belief that “it was the permanent duty of modern government to exert its managerial hand in widespread places to regulate, compensate, and control, protecting the public interest and ensuring stability along with progress.” [4]. Amity Shlaes’ comprehensive history of the New Deal goes into even more detail on how the political culture of America fundamentally shifted toward institutionalized statism. [5]

This meant that Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs of the 1960s and Jimmy Carter’s domestic activism of the 1970s were simply logical outgrowths of an already solidly institutionalized core. Over the decades this righteous view for government activism was left in the hands of an ever larger and less accountable career bureaucracy. The idealism of the Progressives morphed into expanding governmental efforts regardless of results.

Johnson’s Great Society had one more legacy – entitlements. Except for Social Security, which is arguably a pension program based on designated contributions, Congress had to annually appropriate funds for all government activities. The Social Security Act of 1965 created Medicare and Medicaid as entitlements. This meant that federal funds are automatically allocated without Congressional action, based upon projected eligibility. This added a booster rocket to America’s journey over the fiscal cliff.

These stunning facts mean that the elements of the modern governmental culture had decades to grow, refine, and entrench themselves. To confront the reality of America’s modern bureaucratic state, now in its fourth generation, requires a long-term struggle.

No one election, or series of elections, will fully reverse this entrenched public sector culture. Conservatives and Republicans focus on tactical not strategic ends. These political players can achieve victories for or against various policies, but everything they do can be swept away with the next vote. Through it all the entrenched bureaucracy lives on. It was like a great ocean. The top may be turbulent and storms may churn the top few feet, but in the miles of water below these upper reaches, life goes on, unaffected. Few know what lies below these top few feet. Even less understand how institutionalized and embedded this core culture has become. Fewer still have the knowledge, or the stamina, to confront and vanquish it.

As a member of the Reagan Transition Team of 1980-81, I had a front row seat for viewing this phenomenon. Hundreds of conservative activists poured into the transition and then fanned-out into the agencies. Volumes of reports and recommendations lined the reference center at the Transition Headquarters. Major think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, published comprehensive manifestos and circulated them to the new elected and appointed officials. Conservative-focused revolutionary fervor permeated the air at every Washington cocktail party and political strategy meeting.

The sad reality is that an overwhelming number of those great ideas died in someone’s in box. Either a gatekeeper for a powerful agency head or a career head of a program simply ignored the input and decided to not pass it on. Not a one of these nameless public servants was ever held accountable for their acts of unilateral veto. Great political and policy minds spent the eight years of the Reagan Administration trying to figure out why their domestic revolution did not happen. To this day no one has fully analyzed how the failure to effectively plan and control administrative implementation contributed to its demise.

It will take a diverse group of committed revolutionaries to finally perfect methods of changing entrenched bureaucracies. Some of these successes were compiled by David Osborne in his groundbreaking book, Reinventing Government [6], and his follow-up book, Banishing Bureaucracy [7]. Yet, while citizens and public officials outside the Washington beltway have finally begun to rethink the role of government in their lives, and actually make substantive changes, the federal government remains unchanged. In Washington, only the names of the top officials and their rhetoric change. In the miles of bureaucratic ocean beneath them, the cycle of life continues as unaffected as ever.
How do we get back on solid ground?

Hyper-partisanship has created a level of government gridlock not seen since the days before the American Civil War. Even facts are created and filtered through a partisan prism.

All sides in this hyper-partisan environment refuse to cede credibility or rational thought to those with whom they disagree. Even those who seek a middle ground remain oblivious to the structural challenges that need to be overcome if America is to pull back from the fiscal precipice.

Budgeting is only part of governing. This was clear from the debt battles of 2011 and those that lie ahead. Those in the budget policy arena think that macro-level spending targets and pronouncements will turn things around. They forget that the operation of the Federal government is made-up of minute to minute micro-decisions made by over four million functionaries. [8] Winning their sincere commitment to reining in government spending and rationally managing public resources will only occur if they embrace a completely new approach to leading the Executive Branch.

The first step is to understand that most government workers want to be left alone. They will oppose any disruption of their daily routine in countless ways. The most insidious is “malicious compliance”. This is when a functionary takes policy or management guidance to a logical extreme with the intention of creating failure. This happens all the time. Front line service personnel are laid-off or deprived resources with the intention of causing the most pain for those directly impacted by government. This causes a public and/or media backlash against the cuts or reforms. The functionaries remain untouched and wait for their policy leaders in the Executive and Legislative Branches to “come to their senses” and retreat from the initiative in question.

Recently, “malicious compliance” combined with “street theater” as the National Park Service staged a small crisis to convince the public that budget cuts were already harming operations. During a tour at a National Park, the grass was not mowed in the tour area. The ranger conducting the tour repeatedly explained that this unsightly unmowed grass was because of recent budget cuts. Three days later the grass was perfectly mowed. There was no real budget issue, but a vivid visual was intentionally embedded in those on that tour.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) recently unearthed a government-wide effort at “malicious compliance”: “In total, the federal government is projected to end 2012 with more than $2 trillion in unexpended funds that will be carried over to next year, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. While more than two-thirds of this amount is obligated for specific purposes, $687 billion remains unobligated, meaning it is essentially money for nothing.” [9]

Remember that the next time Congressional leaders anguish over how to cut just $60 billion a year from the Federal Budget.

In addition to unexpended balances there are nearly $500 billion a year in waste documented by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the 73 Inspector General offices [10]. Few, if any, of these thousands of detailed findings and recommendations are ever acted upon.

Remember that the next time a pundit talks about how any sized cut from a given program, department, or agency will cripple America.

Another aspect of government managerial dysfunction borders on malfeasance. This is the amount of inefficiency built into every endeavor.

Back in 1978, my Master’s thesis analyzed social expenditures for Native Americans on three reservations in northern Minnesota for FY77. In that fiscal year, the federal government poured $70,384,937 into these reservations on behalf of their 8,153 inhabitants. When all those funds rattled through the labyrinth of administrative layers and duplicative offices the Native Americans benefited at only $991 per capita, 11.5 percent of the original value. The rest had disappeared in administrative overhead, duplication of effort, and basic mismanagement. In essence, $62.3 million taxpayer dollars, 88.5 percent of the total, went to benefit government workers and contractors, not the Native Americans. The tribal leaders I interviewed described this phenomenon as “White Tape.” [11]

While some Federal programs may provide more than 11.5 percent of value for effort, it gives one pause about the stewardship of our public resources.

One would think that anyone truly supportive of a given program would be appalled that even one penny was squandered. The ugly truth is that politicians, across the ideological spectrum, would rather rally around sending good money after bad, than manage what they have.

Those who govern us need to be honest with us. Solving America’s fiscal problems is a matter of will, not way. Politicians and pundits need to admit that they really would rather have America wastefully spend itself into oblivion than to take on the unglamorous and very hard task of reforming government operations.

There is another way. A President could lead a top to bottom recreation of how government operates. This would not be another lengthy study that is ignored, but rather sending in fully empowered teams of skilled managers to immediately change things, real time, on an office by office, program by program, day by day, action-oriented basis. Their mandate would be the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) [12], which has been around since 1993 and has been routinely ignored. If properly enforced, and by preventing “malicious compliance”, GPRA can be the battering ram used by a President and his teams to fundamentally and permanently make over the Federal Government.

[Mr. Faulkner was Chief Administrative Officer for the U.S. House of Representatives and served as a federal executive during all eight years of the Reagan Administration.]

NOTES

[1] Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877-1920. (Hill and Wang, New York, 1967), page 221. http://www.amazon.com/Search-Order-1877-1920-Robert-Wiebe/dp/0809001047/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345923643&sr=1-1&keywords=Robert+H.+Wiebe

[2] Ibid., pages 294-295.

[3] Ibid., page 198.

[4] Otis Graham, Jr., Toward A Planned Society; From Roosevelt to Nixon, (Oxford University Press, New York, 1977), page 21. http://www.amazon.com/Toward-Planned-Society-Roosevelt-Nixon/dp/0195019857/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345923613&sr=1-5&keywords=Otis+Graham%2C+Jr

[5] Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (Harper, New York, 2007) http://www.amazon.com/The-Forgotten-Man-History-Depression/dp/0066211700

[6] David Osborne, (Plume / Penguin Books, 1993) Reinventing Government: How The Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming The Public Sector http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Government-Enrepreneurial-Spirit-Transforming/dp/B000IWAV2C/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345923791&sr=1-4&keywords=David+Osborne+Reinventing+Government

[7] David Osborne, Banishing Bureaucracy (Plume / Penguin Books, 2005). http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=David+Osborne+Banishing+Bureaucracy

[8] http://www.opm.gov/feddata/historicaltables/totalgovernmentsince1962.asp

[9] http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=612f09e3-e950-480e-84f8-1e54d2e6bc30

[10] http://citizenoversight.blogspot.com/2012/04/federal-budget-inferno.html

[11] Scot Faulkner, unpublished manuscript: “The Government Labyrinth: The Delivery of Indian Social Programs in the Seventh District of Minnesota”; American University, March 1978.

[12] http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/mgmt-gpra/index-gpra