What John DiIulio Said
I think this is too good to excerpt just read
“Want better, smaller government? Hire another million federal bureaucrats.”
by John DiIulio. He argues that the obsession with keeping the number of Federal civilian employees low has reduced efficiency and created powerful concentrated interests represented by powerful lobbies. The fact that he was “the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives”under W and assigned the task of replacing “bureaucrats” with non-profits makes his current argument more striking.
I have only one objection to the article. DiIulio argues that the too small workforce lead to poor performance by the Veterans’ Adminstration “And the recent scandal at Veterans Affairs hospitals, whose “contract officer’s representatives” are too few to properly monitor what the small armies of contractors at VA medical centers do.”
There are two problems with this example. Neither DiIulio nor anyone else has presented evidence that the VA provides other than the best health care in the USA. The scandal is what the VA did compared to VA standards not compared to other US health care providers.
Also if the example were valid (which it isn’t) it would tend to undermine DiIulio’s argument. The VA relies much more on public sector employees to perform services directly than the rest of the US system does. If it provided worse care than Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, out of pocket or charity, the case for public provision of services would be weakened.
The two errors cancel. the case of the VA provides strong support for DiIulio’s proposal (as does the case of Medicare Advantage and Fannie & Freddie state owned vs privatized and … way too many examples to list).
The million new bureaucrats should replace the contracted out provisions except K St will demand US keep them.
US needs a draft.
The all volunteer force has done two things: created a hugely expensive (lethargic as the old stuff is replaced without question or strategy, to keep the job and profits in privatized arsenals) and a shadow army of support contractors since soldiers are expensive.
The extra million government bureaucrats would not replace the contracted support resulting from reducing federal civil servant positions.
Government manpower decisions have been to contract out. Privatized means less efficiency with low risk good margins so the providers can afford the PAC’s and humbug factories to build more business.
See the Pentagon’s quadrennial review, US’ empire is always in trouble even though it spends half the war money in the world.
Having read the article I don’t think he was suggesting the VA was producing poor healthcare. The crisis as I understood it and have experienced via my patients experience is too few people for the demand for services. Thus, the made up numbers.
It is the same problem happening throughout this nations business. Simple cut out a worker or 2 here and there continuously. It’s the MBA way. Now that the conservative mantra of government is a business to be run as such, this is what you get. Unfortunately, government does not have an endless world of new areas to expand to that covers up the loss in efficiency and quality when you cut the labor force too much.
Here is a number for you all: 2000. That was the case load of a given social worker in RI as recently as 2 years ago. So, how does such a worker actually accomplish their job especially if the public is demanding that the “waste” is cut out. The most sever cases get the greatest attention and the rest…well good luck.