Government inefficiency

Yesterday the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that it was reversing plans to eliminate the option of providing service over the phone. This was a response to a public outcry over the proposed policy. The reason for the outcry was that many older people (the type most likely to get Social Security benefits) are distrustful and uncomfortable with the Internet. They therefore rely on telephone service for things like arranging direct deposit of their Social Security benefits. (SSA is still not allowing changes to direct deposit over the phone, contrary to what I wrote in an earlier version.)

SSA should be applauded for reversing an obviously wrongheaded policy, but it is worth asking how it ever came up with the idea of eliminating phone service to begin with. Apparently, this was one of the efficiency enhancing measures that the “super-high IQ” DOGE team developed. This is a great example of how the ostensible “efficiency” being pushed by Elon Musk and his DOGE team has little to do with actually promoting efficiency in government.

There are some simple and obvious points that we can say about government efficiency. First, we have a $7 trillion federal budget. That fact means that we can be absolutely certain that there is some waste, fraud, and abuse. We also can be sure that some of the 2.4 million workers employed by the federal government are lazy and/or incompetent, just as we can be certain that some of the 154 million workers employed in the private sector are lazy and/or incompetent.

But moving from these obvious truths to increasing government efficiency is a big step. We actually do have people within the government that have been working for years trying to improve efficiency. Most obviously, there is the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which regularly audits various government departments and makes specific recommendations on how they can increase efficiency.

We also have the inspector generals (IG) of the agencies and departments, who review processes and contracts within agencies like USAID and look for fraud and abuse. Many of the widely publicized incidents of fraud or abuse have been uncovered by these IGs.

Incredibly, one of Donald Trump’s first moves in office was to fire most of the IGs. While it is questionable whether he even has the legal authority to do this (the law says that they can only be fired with cause), it makes zero sense that a president anxious to get rid of waste in government would fire people who in many cases have decades of experience exposing waste and fraud.

One defense of the firings is that the IGs have not been successful in eliminating waste, but this line is just repeated to generate confusion. The IGs only have power to make recommendations, they can’t do anything on their own. If Trump, Musk, and DOGE were actually interested in eliminating waste and abuse, they would review the reports from the various IGs, as well as recommendations from GAO and use these as a guide for eliminating problems that have already been identified.

Instead, they have largely run around blindly, making cuts at agencies before they even bothered to learn what the agencies or their workers do. This is exactly what happened when they fired essential staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration before they realized they were needed to ensure the safety of our nuclear weapon stockpile. They subsequently had to rush to rehire them. They had difficulty tracking down some workers because they had deleted their government e-mails.

Excerpted: ‘Government Efficiency and DOGE Government Efficiency’.

Courtesy: Counterpunch.org