Look:
Anyone with sufficient math skills to balance their own checkbook, and the sense that God gave granite, could “fix” the federal budget in about a week, and make it work like a sewing machine. just cutting 10% off the administrative costs of each bloated entitlement program would amount to the most amazing savings.
A good friend of mine, who has testified in Congress, told me he believed the representatives really did represent their constituency as best they could, but the bureaucracy is and was a nightmare, and the politicians are beholden to that bureaucracy. And a lions share of that bloated federal budget is devoted to keeping that burocracy happy, and it has powerful unions ot protect it.
We know what we have to do. When are we going to do it?
I have heard this argument before. It was even a central point to help squash the Republic and bring Emperor Palpitane to power in Star Wars. But I am not sure how much truth there is.
As a member of the Federal Bureaucracy, I certainly don’t have that kind of power. The military and Senior Civil Service leaders I work for seem genuinely diligent about controlling costs… while they justify how important the new multi-billion dollar procurement is to national defense. They also seem to really care that the staff is bloated and inefficient, so they hire more technical experts to help them figure it out. The worst problem seems to be a sort of corporate blind spot where the inefficiencies on other organizations are clear as day, but your own office problems are insivible and unsolvable.
In general, every element of the bureaucracy is a direct result of elected leaders adding programs and staff to satisfy constituent demands. If the constituents would demand less, or the elected officials had the courage to tell them “no” once in a while, the bureaucracy would follow.
At least in DoD, I don’t see much union involvement in anything.
Its there but not usually first tier. Entitlement is thelions share of the trouble.
Who mentioned unions? Bureaucracts will self perpetuate as once created they need budget to continue.
We have a bureaucracy that is wrapped around expanding the electrical network. They started in the 20’s. If they aren’t done yet, what have they been doing for 80 plus years?
Unions will excabarate the problem, but they are not the source.
Clearly not. But they are their first line of defense and its a strong one.
What og said.
The big spending in entitlements is the entitlements themselves, not the administrative costs.
(Which are big, but not so big that a 10% cut in them would balance the budget – in fact, I doubt that cutting them to zero would be remotely enough.)
No one will ever have the balls to cut a program[s] that hurts a voter short of marshal law.
“If I’se don’t get my free stuff an’ checks we be burnin’ dis place down.”
DC and the Statehouses will not ever go there.
Whats next?
Article One, Section Five, Paragraph Two of the Constitution begins, Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings…
That little mistake by the Founders is the cause of of most federal mischief. With that power, Congress has written rules that prohibit legislation from being voted on by the full chamber, unless it clears a committee, and gives committee chairmen the power to arbitrarily prohibit legislation from being brought before the committee.
That clause also allows them to exempt themselves from laws they inflict upon us, such as exempting themselves from insider-trading laws.
That clause didn’t have much impact before the evil Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments were ratified. But with the addition of more power provided by the Sixteenth, and the corruption of lobbying caused by the Seventeenth; the flaw of that clause has been amplified tremendously.
As long as that clause exists in the Constitution, virtually everyone elected to Congress is sucked into the cesspool, no matter how noble they start out to be.