The Private Sector has to Fix our Federal Government

This is not a post about politics,  but a statement about financial aspects and failures of our federal government.  This also does not relate to spending on our military, FEMA emergency funds etc.  Regardless of your political beliefs, I think we can all agree that enough is enough when it comes to the feds wasting our hard earned tax dollars. 

The latest is the 16.00$ muffins and 10.00$ cookies spent on some federal government boondoggle meetings.  Who signs off or pre-approves these expense reports and travel expenses? 

In the private sector,  business travelers normally get a 75.00-100.00 dollar stipend for meals per day.  I always felt that was quite liberal, but these expenses have to fit in the business and P/L model or it gets eliminated or cut anyway, because the private sector cuts back when profits erode. 

The wasteful spending is far and wide and it’s impossible to talk about every situation.  The federal government needs to modernize its fiscal reporting and financial management.  Each department needs a budget and an outside source to audit the numbers.  The executives in charge of departments (DOE, FAA, USDA, AG Dept., IRS, FHA, etc., etc)……have to work on a budget and be held accountable.  I believe many departments can keep their head count, if they just reduce waste (and fraud).  Most private sector experts could step in and reduce waste and spending by 10-20%, the problem is how to get your arms around such a beast.  Every new politician on Capitol Hill raves about the reckless spending, and spending like drunken sailors, but no one can stop it, hence third party private sector audits are needed.  If a department has a current budget of 5 billion dollars, issue an edict to cut 20% and let the gov’t executives and private audit entities figure it out.  Many of these government organizations can be privatized and issued annual funds and the P/L managers can run the organizations since there are no profit or revenue incentives only tax payer revenue.  Of course, expense efficiencies could be rewarded and annual budgets based on GDP forecasts.

  Let some of the most successful companies in the world, IBM, GoToWebinar (eliminate the boondoggles), Lean Six Sigma Consulting, and others come in and make sweeping changes and recommendations and replace archaic systems and cultures.  All elected officials need to be kept far, far away from these operations.  Our elected officials need to concentrate on looking through the  windshield and not the rear view mirror.  Our elected officials need to look at improvements in legislation and focus on important decisons for our country moving forward.  They have proven they are reckless spenders and they need to be removed from the finances.  All expenses and financial requests need to be analyzed and approved by non-interested consultants.  No one will approve thousands for muffins and cookies, its become a total joke.  Expense management;  and we need to hold the politicians and government employees and entities accountable down to the penny.  If actions and strategies can’t be measured or they aren’t measurable, we have to question why they exist. 

We have dire needs on our own soil and enormous amounts of money are wasted abroad.  500 million here, 500 hundred million there, imagine what benefit our local economies would gain from those funds.  We have a severe spending problem and there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way our federal government operates.

My children talk about politics and most of their peers don’t want to participate under the current system, they feel our generation is not on their side.  We desperately need efficiencies and a sea change in the way our government operates financially.

It’s not about republicans, democrats or any other party, it’s about survival.  Maybe a steady diet of Ramen Noodles and PB&J’s are in order instead of 16.00 dollar muffins and cognacs on flights.  Fiscal responsibility is just common sense.