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603er t1_jacf3cb wrote

This is a good article and highlights how many who preach “small government” actually use self fulfilling prophecy to enforce their opinions.

Cut government jobs —> hire contractors who then charge boatloads of money and are inefficient —> blame the government. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I saw this a lot in the Army. The DOD budget is obviously massive. Yet unbeknownst to many, there’s a solid chunk of service members on food stamps. Much of the bloat of DOD budgets come from reliance on contractors, everything from weapon’s manufacturing to logistics (KBR was a familiar one). It’s a cycle of basically getting swindled. Sure they have insights and should be used appropriately, but reliance on them just ruins it for everyone and further erodes trust in government unfortunately.

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-Tony t1_jacfncd wrote

They cut the benefits and barely gave any raises to the public employees for years, on top of multiple hiring freezes. There’s almost no incentive to go into public service anymore.

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603er t1_jacg26q wrote

Agreed. I think much of that comes from folks who want to limit large government and public “bloat”, unfortunately.

There’s certainly bureaucracy in the government. But solving the problems the article laid out definitely won’t come from making working in the public sector undesirable. Those jobs need good wages and benefits. Taxpayers pay for those jobs, yet too many people are hung up on the idea that government is too big/ not good at its job and decide to vote against tax increases to fund public jobs. So when the bare bones government staff then eventually can’t perform well, those same folks are proved right in some way.

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ripstep1 t1_jacspg7 wrote

Why would I pay government programmers 300k a year when their production is inferior to Apple or MSFT?

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603er t1_jactd6n wrote

Well you wouldn’t now because apple can attract more workers with better salaries. If we funded government agencies to pay employees competitively then perhaps that would change. Again - self fulfilling.

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ripstep1 t1_jacuhav wrote

And again, I am unwilling to pay for 300k programmers with my tax dollars. Already annoyed about 100k police officers.

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603er t1_jacv7vu wrote

So what’s the solution then? Because what will happen is that without attracting top talent, government will just be completely unable to do anything. Roads will be terrible, subways will be terrible, and we will all complain about it. Yet we don’t want to fund programs to fix it.

You’ve effectively implemented societal purgatory.

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mrchumblie t1_jacxxau wrote

So the solution is to pay even more money for contractors? Your comments make no sense.

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Bungabunga10 t1_jacx83z wrote

Because the work still needs to be done and it will be outsourced to private contractor who charges 300k x 3.5 multiplier = 1 million per programmer

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AnacharsisIV t1_jacx1vx wrote

Do you believe that no programming job can be worth 300k?

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Aiorr t1_jaemo78 wrote

dude you are probly paying Booz Allen-contracted-programmer-consultant 400k with your tax dollar for the same thing right now.

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newestindustry t1_jad0pwt wrote

Might want to use different examples than Apple and Microsoft when talking about getting way less than you pay for

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Cyril_Clunge t1_jad1hfz wrote

I do love seeing complaints about how inefficient government is, as if the private sector doesn’t have massive bloat and waste as well.

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kjuneja t1_jad3cv2 wrote

Every fortune 500 operates on consultants

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pixel_of_moral_decay t1_jact4bu wrote

Healthcare too.

They complain about waste and want everything private, then private companies make billions effectively just sitting in between payments.

Government could do what health insurance does for a fraction of the price given it just needs to break even not appease shareholders.

But good luck convincing “small government” bull shit artists that shareholder profit is part of the waste problem.

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raposadigital t1_jadx2ae wrote

I saw this in the navy specifically in HR. They cut a bunch of jobs by combining 2 jobs and then hired consultants. Took everyone of the ships and placed them in one building.

Hundreds of service personnel had to either switch jobs or eventually get out because they could not move up in rank.

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meteoraln t1_jad777p wrote

Cant they just pick cheaper contractors? Or limit the budget so there’s less money for politicians to fill their friend’s pockets?

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GreatStateOfSadness t1_jadxsg4 wrote

Cheaper contractors usually result in shoddier work. When I was doing consulting with city and regional governments, it was not uncommon for a government to pick one of our competitors because they promised to get the work done for half the price. Then, six months later, it becomes evident that the competitor vastly underbid and ended up delivering results that were well below expectations. The government then has to basically throw that work out and start over.

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meteoraln t1_jadz4oh wrote

A good example - the Freedom Tower in NYC, over 100 stories tall, was built with $4 billion. NYC is currently looking to spend $12 billion on renovating, not building, the Port Authority bus station. Maybe the government should use the Freedom Tower builders? Maybe NYC has incompetent managers that can’t be trusted to run and direct the builders.

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DelTeaz t1_jactsp8 wrote

“small government” is when the MTA spends $23 billion a year and you live in the highest taxed city in the entire country. Lol give me a break. You guys are losing it. Bending over backwards to blame capitalism or some other thing instead of just admitting government agencies are run by idiots in the first place. Somehow we have more funding than maybe any city in the entire world but get horrible service.

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603er t1_jacuwcv wrote

Not at all.

Things cost money. That’s a fact. We can expect something like a massive subway system to cost a lot of money.

What’s frustrating is that in other relatively comparable cities, governments have implemented transit systems that cost less money. Clearly then, government is capable of doing this.

A main issue is that with our reliance on contractors and not funding internal agency staff properly, projects become bloated and costly and we say “what are we paying the MTA so much for!” That’s a fair question, but doesn’t mean that government itself is to blame, especially if private contractors are running up cost. The blame lies at how the government is staffed and how it goes about it’s business.

Again, as seen elsewhere, governments are able to make this work.

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DelTeaz t1_jacvszi wrote

By definition the government itself is to blame. Who else spends the money??

It’s not like it’s stolen at gunpoint by the consultants. The whole institution is corrupt and they knowingly pay way above market rates for everything. It’s not their money so they don’t care. Been that way for years now and nothing is going to change that without drastic action. Whether it’s privatization or a complete federal takeover who knows.

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603er t1_jacwvsg wrote

Of course I should have said that “government as an institution isn’t to blame”.

The current government and its policies are to blame, sure. But government as a system isn’t the issue, surely it can’t be if elected officials in other nations find ways to publicly fund and oversee massive metro systems.

The goal now becomes to reform our governments policies to make it work better and cut out middle men.

Part of that process is having internal staff, based on the article. That will mean attracting talent to work for government agencies themselves, which means having competitive salaries for them.

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DelTeaz t1_jad3lzk wrote

Of course, but this is just scapegoating “consultants”

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ripstep1 t1_jacsmmz wrote

Soldiers on food stamps is because they use their money to take out loans for cars. Another perfect example of government incompetence

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603er t1_jact4no wrote

Yea definitely dude they all buy dodge chargers. It’s not because base pay for a E4 is terrible.

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ripstep1 t1_jacukvb wrote

E4 pay is for the bottom barrel high school grad who is also getting fed and housed.

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603er t1_jacv1tv wrote

Really? Because E4s are only entry level if they enlist with a degree. E2 is typically after high school. And nearly half of the E4s I had in my units had families with children. It’s just a reality man.

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MyojoRepair t1_jadnn32 wrote

> Soldiers on food stamps is because they use their money to take out loans for cars. Another perfect example of government incompetence

How is that government incompetence and not individual incompetence.

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