Department of Government Efficiency?
By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
To the list of well-known oxymorons add “government efficiency.” Like “military intelligence” or “civil war” the term “government efficiency” defies logic. By definition, government cannot be efficient because it does not have a profit motive. Government makes no effort to minimize costs in order to maximize profits. It is inherently wasteful and inefficient. Its objective is often to maximize costs in order to not endanger future appropriations. There is no profit to be maximized either because there are no profits. The government workforce does not have to worry about being terminated if their company fails. Management is rarely fired. The Pentagon has failed seven consecutive audits and yet its CFO still has a job. Don’t you think that there is a wee bit of waste, theft and fraud in that agency? Yet no one in the administration seems to care.
I presume what Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are going to try to do is to minimize the number of government agencies/employees needed to perform certain tasks. We all know that there are redundant functions running through government agencies. We also know that government employees are often idle at work. There are parts of the government that are outdated and no longer serve any purpose, yet they are still funded. However, Trump’s DOGE is itself redundant. If I were a Cabinet member, I would resent the DOGE telling me how to become more efficient. Isn’t that my job? Why didn’t Trump just tell his Cabinet that their budgets were going to be cut by a certain percent each year and it was their job to determine where to cut?
So Department of Government Efficiency? Not hardly. Government cannot ever be efficient. Consider how it is funded. What determines how much money is appropriated to what function? Surely it is not the market but a political determination. What determines the number of federal agencies? Again the answer is political and not the market. Since there are no market constraints, the federal government has grown unchecked as new agencies and offices are added with a federal workforce growing to around three million employees. In fact the federal government is so large that there is not even a comprehensive list of how many federal agencies exist. I kid you not.
Yet the market is not the solution either. Consider what economists call a public good. That is a good that cannot be priced effectively by the market. One such good is national defense. Suppose you were asked how much you are willing to pay for national defense. Some would say a lot while others would say very little. I would say “nothing,” not because I am opposed to national defense. In fact I may be a hawk. It is just that I will get defended equally regardless of how much I pay. If Oak Ridge is attacked, the military is not going to say, “Don’t defend that house with the red roof because he didn’t pay anything.” Therefore, I won’t be denied the good (defense) because I didn’t pay for it. Consequently, when people realize this, no one would be willing to pay for defense. Thus, we have part of our tax dollars allocated for national defense whether we like it or not. Thus, any function that is a public good should be in the province of the government. All other functions, not so much.
However, Musk and Ramaswamy can provide a service by recommending the consolidation of redundant government functions across agencies. To this end, all they need to do is look at GAO’s excellent annual report on duplication and cost savings, www.gao.gov/duplication-cost-savings. That will save them a lot of time and effort. They can also read Rand Paul’s annual report targeting government waste. The Heritage Foundation also publishes an annual report. Ironically, the DOGE is itself an example of government waste if all it does is waste money duplicating the efforts already made to target the lack of efficiency in the federal government.
