With the stroke of the pen and this Executive Order, President Obama created a month ago today the Commission to Cut Government Waste, AKA the Campaign to Cut Government Waste (the fact that this initiative appears, according to different press releases, have two names suggests it might not be so efficient itself).
Sounds like a great idea. The accompanying video to the President's announcement outlines some egregious examples of USG waste. Well reported by the press last month was deserttortoise.gov, a USG website run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's "Desert Tortoise Recovery Office." Obama also highlights the wastefulness of printing the Federal Register instead of just keeping it online. That is a small step forward (although actually eliminating some of the laws which make up Register is what is really needed).
Who is leading this effort? It's Fearless Joe Biden, of course. In the spirit of Reinventing Government Al Gore, Cut Costs at any Cost VP Biden is going to "relentlessly focus on making this a priority. (Remember when the vice president was a minor character in American governance, as the Constitution imagined it? That went out the window when modern presidents discovered the office could be used as a force multiplier.)
To that end- what has been done since this well-orchestrated announcement was made last month?
Departments are required under the Order to report efforts to cut waste, within six months, to Brave and Honest Joe Biden. But other than that fact gathering effort, no other action appears to be taking place- with one exception.
Recent reporting indicates that the Commission, or Campaign, or whatever it is, will instruct federal agencies to cut contracting management costs by 15%, and effort which will save $6 billion, presumably per year. That is progress and commendable, pure and simple. But far, far more is needed. (One also has to wonder how much of those savings would have been realized anyway, given the already programmed draw downs in Iraq and Afghanistan which presumably account for many of these expenditures).
Additionally, while it is wonderful news the USG is no longer paying $9.95 per year for a turtle domain name (Do .gov domains actually cost money? Are tortoises the same as turtles? Maybe there's an Americorps kid who can do the research for me, federally subsidized at $11 per hour).
This is all predictable, of course. Every President since Reagan has gone through the motions on cutting USG Waste. He created the Grace Commission, which similarly made loud proclamations about cutting waste, while dancing around the edges.
The problem is, cutting minor inefficiencies should not require a massive federal effort. That sort of action should take place daily throughout the bureaucracy. But the USG has grown so bloated that there is an ethos of perpetual growth. Put simply: to get promoted, one needs to grow their programs, so every agency seeks more funding for more growth. Ask a government bureaucrat what they do and chances are they are indispensable. The truth is, most of them are not needed.
This treacherous inertia has led us to where we are now, short cash and unaware of the real cause of the problem. At this point the only solution is a massive, across the board cut of all but the most essential, Constitutional federal services. Not printing the Federal Register (which I suspect is a codified requirement, by the way) will not be sufficient.
This means cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and, yes, defense. But I doubt Bulletproof Joe Biden will volunteer for that campaign.
Sensible libertarian views on nearly everything- except foreign affairs.