The Sequester and Government Spending ... Who's In Charge?

The automatic spending "cuts" amounting to a slight increase in federal spending this year take effect today. The $44 billion in "cuts" will total less than 2% of what the government spends this year.

In the private sector, cutting spending by 2% in tough times is hardly an impossible task. And reducing costs by 10% or more is frequently required for companies with difficult financial issues. And as a country, we certainly have difficult financial issues to solve.

An economy normally grows by additional output, and additional output is enhanced by both additional workers and productivity gains.

But when the economy isn't growing sufficiently, it's time to change the way things get done. We always need ongoing productivity improvements, but they are especially required during the tough times.

Productivity gains result from discovering and implementing better ways to do things. By so doing, less effort and cost are expended to produce the same result as previously was attained at a higher total amount of effort and cost.

So when times are tough, we need to spend less effort and money to achieve the same or nearly the same result. It's also a great opportunity to eliminate waste and clean up our act. In fact, emphasizing productivity is always a good idea and practice. And today that's especially true for the public sector. Let's give taxpayers a break.

So why does President Obama not choose to attack government waste instead of negatively impacting government programs that are actually useful and needed? Does he really believe that there's no waste to be eliminated in government or no opportunity for improving the way things are done --- aka gains in productivity -- meaning that we can get the same results for less total cost? And in the government sector, this should be REALLY easy to do.

Or doesn't he realize that we have a bloated, inefficient and high cost public sector precisely because we don't routinely and habitually insist on productivity gains and innovative improvements in how our government functions? I realize that he never worked in the private sector, but this is ridiculous.

Here's just one idea for improvement from Senator Tom Coburn in Notable & Quotable:

"Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), in a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget, Feb. 26:

The administration is warning sequestration may force the laying off or furloughing of air traffic controllers, border patrol officers, food inspectors, Transportation Security Administration screeners, or civilians supporting our men and women in combat in Afghanistan. I would suggest the better approach is to consolidate duplicative positions with overlapping responsibilities and nearly identical jobs.

In just the past two years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified more than 1,362 duplicative programs accounting for at least $364.5 billion in federal spending every single year. . . .

During a time of budget cuts, it is irresponsible to pay two or more people to do the same job, while laying off other employees in essential positions performing critical duties."

Summing Up

Since the President and Congress are unable to find the energy to reduce spending on their own, let's do it for them. Make the cuts real cuts, make them big cuts and make them automatic cuts each year until government spending is brought under control and the budget is nearly balanced.

My own view is that we should insist on automatic spending reductions of at least 5% each year until the government officials are able to balance the federal budget. 

With federal spending now approaching $4 trillion annually, that 5% reduction would mean at least a $200 billion annual cut -- which is approximately 5 times higher than the $44 billion impacted by the current 'world ending' disaster of a sequester.

Under my proposal, the President would have the authority to choose which areas of waste to attack first if he didn't like the idea of arbitrary across-the-board cuts.

My guess is that he and the next president elected in 2016 wouldn't run out of "opportunities" for waste elimination and accompanying productivity gains for at least 10 more years.

Thanks. Bob.