I've long been averse to politics, mostly because I am exhausted by the partisanship displayed by everyone from both sides. The two party system is flawed and generates very little progress amongst a sea of bickering and posturing. Life is about gray, life is about compromise. These are lessons our politicians rarely bring to the table to help move the needle on the many opportunities in our country for which political action is a solution.
But this isn't a post about politics. My cynicism has migrated/expanded to our federal government as a whole. Our government is just flat terrible at running stuff.
Post office run smoothly?...nope. Long lines, sporadic service, no urgency...and a $16B annual shortfall. Oops! How many companies are afforded that track record and still allowed to function? 25-30 years ago over 50% of private company workers in the US had pension benefits, today that number is 3%. Want to know why? Because the long term pension obligations create such a financial burden on the organization that it cannot be successful. That is unless you can just tax your customers and print your own money. In that case...PENSIONS FOR ALL! Want an example of pension obligations gone bad: Stockton, California. Check out the link HERE.
Let's pivot to another well-oiled government machine...the DOT. I went to get my license renewed recently. It took 75 minutes of which I spent approximately 3 doing something and 72 waiting. Some specific observations about this super-efficient organization:
Observation #1. There were roughly 12 people working that I could see. There were never more than 5 actually helping someone. For my entire visit, 2 were simply standing there watching/supervising others. Didn't have a clipboard, a PDA, not even a cup of coffee. Just stood there like a sentry next to a memorial on the national mall.
Observation #2. It took about 8 minutes to process my credit card transaction. This 8 minutes broke down as follows:
2 minutes - the DOT person queueing up the credit card machine so I could swipe my card.
.5 seconds - me swiping my card.
4 minutes - the credit card machine processing my payment. Must be a 64K connection.
2 minutes - the DOT person printing my receipt on a full page of paper on a printer 80 feet away, retrieving it, and delivering to me.
Can you imagine if it took you that long to buy gas, groceries, a coffee? By the way, this transaction was for $2.50. The $2.50 was $1 for my license renewal and $1.50 for a credit card processing fee. The DOT person was baffled why I wouldn't have any cash. I was baffled why the DOT paid her $5 for the time it took her to collect $2.50 from me.
Observation #3. You are not allowed to have any electronic devices out. No phones, can't read email, be on the internet. No explanation why. The first time I went this rule was being ignored and the two aforementioned supervisors simply looked over the crowd like the sheepdog in a bugs bunny cartoon. The second time I was there one of the supervisors was monitoring the crowd like prisoners at auschwitz and scolding those with the nerve to disobey the clearly marked signs.
One other DOT note, when I called the state DOT line to get clarification on a license question, my estimated hold time was 45 minutes. Do you know what my clients would say to me if I told them I was making their customers wait 45 minutes to talk to a customer service agent?
And let's not forget about the latest IRS scandal, driven by purely political motives. Oh yeah, that's the organization that is going to be in charge of your healthcare. Worried yet? YOU SHOULD BE.
There is an important place for our government in this country. Defense of our nation, legal guidance and enforcement (although this itself has spiraled out of control, but that's another post), welfare support for those in need. But our government has no business running many of the businesses it is running, primarily because it is awful at it. We need to stop putting political science majors and lawyers in public office and start putting business majors in charge. And we need to keep as many pieces of our economy and country privatized as possible.
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