[Daseal]

Government spending is an ideal that has bi-partisan support. I believe liberals and conservatives both agree that government spending has to be reduced, the difference comes in the details and the programs that you save money by cutting. Regardless, cutting government spending is an incredibly complex and sensitive process. No one will be able to slash the government spending, at least without causing huge ripples in the US economy.

Many of us live in the greater DC metro area. We see how important the government is to many of our jobs. I can’t think of a single friend of mine (about 3 people) that don’t have a job that is somehow connected to the government. Many of them work for private companies that aren’t directly hired by the government, etc. The government indirectly funds a big chunk of our economy.

Since graduating college I’ve been a contractor to three major 3-letter organizations. Each one is run much differently and the past 2.5 years have been where I really start to see some of the political and financial struggles. My current organization actually makes more money than it spends. However, it has to give all of the money it makes to congress for appropriations. We then take a significant amount of grief for the amount of money we get from Congress even though we actually pay into the other agencies.

Within my agency, we have an enterprise wide forum that people are constantly putting in ideas for the organization to implement. A resounding majority are ways that the organization can save money. There’s a constant emphasis put on reducing the amount of tax-payer dollars that are spent on X, Y, and Z. Many of the ideas that were both feasible and realistic have actually been implemented or in the process of being implemented. The government employees are tax payers too. They also want the government to run more efficiently and are hard working people that try to serve the country and keep this country running.

Bureaucracy has a place. Bureaucracy is put in place for a reason. We may not agree with the reasons, and when we see it we wonder why such a terrible, convoluted process is in place. However, when you have organizations the size of the big 3-letter agencies, along with the massive amounts of restrictions on how/when/what/where for everything, it becomes necessary. Bureaucracy plays a part in the following:

- Reducing corruption. It is difficult to just ‘hire your buddy’ in the government. The decision is typically taken to multiple decision makers so that a person/product/service can’t get forced through by one person. It also splits up work so one person, hopefully, doesn’t control all the information in a decision. Obviously, this doesn’t work all the time, but it does work to limit the amount of corruption.

- Create Jobs. Multiple levels of bureaucracy creates both government and private industry jobs. Not really my preferred method, but it is part of the equation.

- Standardize Processes. When you have so many people with different backgrounds, ideals, and thoughts on how something ‘should’ run, you need many processes and guidelines to make sure these radically different personalities come close to running similar outfits. Again, not perfect, but I can’t propose any alternatives that would be as effective.

This was a long way to say… at least it’s a start. I want to see cuts to government spending as well. I don’t want my country to be bankrupt. We all have ideas on the best way to do it, but in the end we all want what’s best for our country. We’re going to need to see compromises from both sides of the aisle to get a more fiscally viable government. The first step is attempting to save money here and there. Enough of these do start to make an eventual difference.