something. Oh wait...
I agree with you, and I would like to mention a few things based on my military experience and government efficiency. Considering that the Department of Defense had to make $50 million in cuts in this fiscal year alone, I feel like I know a little bit about it.
One of the problems, at least from a military perspective, is that the military doesn't promote people who are good business managers. It can be a contributing factor, but there isn't a military job specialty for business affairs, something that would require an MBA for example. Military job specialties have to do with a war function, and yet at some point people reach a position where they have to deal with budgets, expenditures, management, etc. The assumption that they have good business sense is a bad one.
In the 20+ years that I've been in, I've seen a lot of things change on the business end of things, and some of them are not without controversy. For example, years ago the military started to privatize military housing, and I'm not sure there are many anywhere that are still run solely by the military. Someone was smart enough to realize that a civilian company could run it much more efficiently, or like a business if you will. In the end it's cheaper to pay that civilian company a certain amount and let them figure out how to run it at a profit. Not surprisingly, the housing (for both families and single military members) has improved since being privatized.
Another example is food service. Galleys, chow halls, dining facilities, whatever you want to call them, aren't run by the military any more. They are all contracted and run by civilians. Even when I was in Iraq, the dining facilities were run by contractors, NOT by the military. I mentioned some controversy involved with contracting services because there is some rub when it comes to having to rely on contractors to support a war. Contractors can say no and walk away. Employees can quit and walk out the door. Many of the war functions now are even carried out by contracted civilians. Companies contract to drive fuel trucks, provide security, intel support, etc. When I was in Iraq I worked with a ton of civilians.
And one more example... many military bases have a few military police officers that patrol the base, but usually perimeter security (gate security) is contracted. We call them "rent-a-cops".
All that to say, there are areas where the Department of Defense has been smart enough to realize that civilians do it better. Government contracting is big money. There is still room for abuse, but at least the government can point the finger at someone else for mismanagement.
But you can't TOTALLY turn stuff over. We still have to manage a budget at our command. We've done nothing but CUT CUT CUT in my last 10-15 years in the military. Anyone who has an idea that with the current wars the entire military is just riding high on piles of money doesn't have a clue of what it's really like. Some days I don't have any paper to put in the damn printer because we don't have the budget to get paper. I can't send my guys on training deployments because there is no money for it. We just got a message the other day that informed the entire Navy that you can't use any budget money for things like command ball caps (a uniform item), recognition plaques (for example, for someone who wins Sailor of the Year), or any uniform items (when people get promoted usually the command provides the new collar devices). We are slashing to the bone. The contractors that we have in our command? Yeah, they are getting furloughed one day a week for the next six months. That's a huge pay cut for them. So all those things we contracted for them to do? Mandatory furlough. Thanks congress.
I should add that many of things that people hear about military commands doing, we have to do with our own money, meaning the money out of our personal pockets. We don't use ANY budget money for things like command holiday parties or command picnics. We're not allowed to do that. The reason that I have to go serve food at Petco Park is so that we can have a fucking holiday party. Every dime that we spend on morale and welfare events is money that we have raised on our own. Nobody in the military is having ANY fun on the taxpayer's dime. My computer at work has 900 MB of RAM and it takes me 10 minutes to log on and open my email, but there's no money to buy RAM. If I want my computer to even work decently, I need to buy my own RAM and put it in the computer. The other day I taped a bunch of paper up on the windows on our office to keep the sun out, because we can't afford to run the air conditioner. It's utterly ridiculous. Can you tell I got a little worked up on this last paragraph?
So yes, it pisses me off that you have organizations like the USPS that are run so poorly. It's mail for God's sake, why can't we privatize THAT?? I have no doubt that FedEx or UPS could make a killing doing letter mail service in an efficient manner. One of the problems is the "govvies", or government employees. My understanding is that it takes a consent letter from God himself to fire one, but that's a discussion for another time. We kick out excellent Sailors because their body fat is too high, while the IRS puts a moron who was illegally targeting conservative groups and refuses to answer question from congress on PAID administrative leave. Nice business paradigm. The waste isn't down where the rubber meets the road, it's a little higher up where the incompetent managers sit with their thumbs up their asses. And then there's congress...
Okay, I'm gonna stop before this turns into an R-rated blog.
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