Current Events:  DOGE — Government Efficiency — Do It Right, or Don’t Bother.

 

I see a lot of hand wringing on social media about Musk and DOGE (the “Department of Government Efficiency”).  Some of it borders on hysteria. 

 

A lot of that hand wringing is about cutting and/or eliminating programs and services.  That’s about the last thing I would do.  But I strongly support taking a big swing at improving government efficiency.  Why?  There’s inefficiency to be reduced, my taxes and yours are too high, and our national debt is too big.  Oh, and as a really experienced and smart 4 star general once said, our national debt is a serious risk to our national security.

 

Full disclosure.  1.)  I’m a political centrist.  Sometimes I vote for Democrats and sometimes I vote for Republicans, 2.)  I’m a bit of a Pollyanna, almost always assuming the good intentions and best of people.  On a few rare occasions, that’s been foolish.  Maybe this is one of those cases.  But almost all the time, it’s been a good assumption and a pleasant way to live life, and 3.) Finally, I am, in fact, thinking out loud here.  I reserve the right to make this thinking better.

 

Like a lot of things, improving government efficiency can be done well or poorly.  Effectively or ineffectively.  Efficiently or inefficiently.  Further down, I provide ideas on how to do it well, effectively and efficiently.  I hope someone is listening.  I hope it might increase your confidence in DOGE’s potential.  If you support the ideas, share them with your network and your elected representatives … tell them that’s how you want DOGE to work.

 

Let’s start with the word “efficiency.”  Simply put, efficiency is output divided by input.  Example from my boyhood:  I deliver 70 newspapers (output), and it takes me 120 minutes of my labor (input).  When I figure out a way to deliver the same 70 newspapers with the same quality in 100 minutes, I’ve improved my efficiency. 

 

Really important point.  To improve efficiency, you can and must measure output and input.  Skeptics will immediately challenge whether you can measure stuff.  They’re mostly wrong on this.  I bet I can come up with a metric that is common sense, practical, and useful for improving the efficiency for almost everything.  Maybe not everything, maybe not perfect, maybe not precise … but practical and useful and easily understood by the people doing the work, by taxpayers, by voters, and by the “customers” of our government.  (I’m glad to entertain challenge questions.  Leave them in Comments.)

 

I spent a lot of my career reducing costs and improving efficiency and productivity.  Without reducing output and without degrading quality.  In fact, we did more and did it better with less.  I know a thing or 2 about how to do it.  Here are a couple of ideas.  They are not theoretical dreaming.  They’ve worked in the real world, time after time.  They’ve worked in big organizations and at large scale, time after time.

 

1. Just do it.  A lot of success in improving efficiency depends on believing you can and believing you must.  We can and we must. 

2. Get the same or more output, with the same or better quality, but at a lower cost.  The emphasis here is on “same or more output”.  Not less.  No “customer” of the work loses a damned thing.  That’s improved efficiency.  How?  Often efficiency improvement is achieved by improving processes … reducing defects, re-work, and waste … and speeding up the process.  In my world, automating away labor with software systems was another powerful tool for improving efficiency and lowering costs.   But big caution here:  the federal government in too many cases is far, far from best-in-class at designing and implementing software projects. 

3. Improve operations and programs that are performing poorly.  By “performing poorly” I mean:  1.) not meeting their performance objectives for delivering value, quality, and efficiency, and 2.) not improving their performance year-over-year.  Fix them … or replace them with something that does work well.  PS.  If you’re not measuring performance, shame on you.  That’s management malpractice.  Start.

4. Squeeze suppliers.  I bet there are plenty cases where the government buys stuff at grossly inflated prices and astonishingly different prices.  Look at what you buy, look at the prices you’re paying.  Compare your prices to what those outside the government pay.  Compare prices paid across different government organizations.  Demand the best price, everywhere, now.

5. In-source contractor labor.  There an enormous number of contractors working for the federal government.  Google tells me there are 3.7 million of them, about 40% of the entire federal workforce.  Contracted workers often cost far more than a government employee, even with the govie’s benefits, vacation time, etc.  That’s an unintended consequence of our push for a small government.  The contractors are laughing all the way to the bank.  The math.  Let’s guess a contractor costs $50,000 more than a govie (and that’s conservative).  Let’s replace 50% of the contractors with govies (and that’s conservative too).  That yields 3.7M x 50% x $50,000 = $92 Billion of annual savings.)

6. Identify activities and programs that are delivering little value, or no value.  Make sure you really understand 2^nd and 3^rd order effects and unintended consequences of downsizing or stopping them.  Understand that these are a political 3^rd rails; they are dangerous.  They will be a huge distraction and drain on those leading DOGE because these programs all have vocal, well-funded, passionate advocates:  lobbyists, special interest groups, and media.  They are the last thing I’d tackle.

Ideas 1 thru 5 require nitty gritty detail work by the operational types, the do-ers.  Good news:  Not glamorous.  Not newsworthy.  Not rocket science.  No silver bullets, big bangs, or moon shots required.  But effective.  Bad news:  They require widespread application and maybe a profound culture change.  I don’t know if they’ll deliver all the $1,000-2,000 Billion goal, but I bet they yield a pleasingly big number. 

 

Idea 6 is for the big thinkers and dreamers.  It will trigger a full-time career for policy wonks, think tanks, legislators, and the media.  Don’t get sucked into that morass.