tl;dr

There is no doubt that our government is wildly inefficient. The USA could benefit greatly from dramatic improvement. At the same time, virtually every function of government is necessary and desired. The government is the large-scale structure of order for humanity. Our government is inefficient primarily due to a lack of trust. This leads to many expensive checks on everything done. Changes by untrustworthy corrupt leadership will do little to fix anything. It will just make the underlying problems worse. In addition, the destruction of the government yields chaos and suffering. Instead, we need to fix government by getting at the core of mistrust.

The State of Things Today

“Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.” ― Peter F. Drucker

I work for the government and I can see gross inefficiency everywhere I look. The situation is dire and needs to be addressed. The work I do is itself inefficient and my support has a vast overhead that does little or nothing productive. Nothing would make me happier than seeing this improve dramatically.

Right now, the fight for government efficiency is being taken up by DOGE led by Elon Musk. I have no doubt that it will be a complete failure and disaster.

The reason why DOGE will fail is twofold. People like Trump and Musk are part of the reason the government is so inefficient. Much of what we do is related to corruption and greed. The second reason is their desire to simply remove government from business’ way. Regulation and government are a societal hedge against business irresponsibility toward society when profit is at stake. This will simply create destruction and in the long run power the very reasons government is so inefficient to new heights. We will just see the government gutted with corruption and greed supercharged. Of course, it is most likely that DOGE is a trojan horse for a huge executive power grab and assault on the separation of powers. Efficiency is simply a marketing label to make DOGE seem like a good idea to people who aren’t paying attention.

I work for a contractor doing government work supporting our National defense. We are a GOCO, government-owned contractor operated. As such we have to comply with all sorts of regulations, directives, and laws. We are incredibly inefficient. Many of our employees spend their effort executing low-value work defined by the government’s directives. Those directives are usually a combination of executive and legislative actions. In that sense, it is the will of the American people. A good bit of these directives directly impact me and the time I spend at work. These are a whole bunch of no-value actions that you must do. They add nothing to the science-engineering product I work for.

The key question is why do I have to do all this shit? Most of this shit has low value and detracts from my real efforts. In addition, this all costs a lot of money to pay “support” people. Time away from being productive is another drain on money. Together it equals government waste and lack of efficiency. Moreover, these burdens of time and money have grown without bound my entire career. When I examine the underlying reasons for virtually every inefficiency there is a common thread. All of this stuff is related to trust; or more specifically, a lack of it.

One of the big drains on my time is mandatory training. All the training is based on executing various regulations to show compliance. The training is generically horrible and takes a lot of energy to pay attention to. We have other processes like our timecard, our accounting, document control, and information classification that all cost a lot of time and money. Our purchasing process is extremely time and documentation-heavy. This costs extra money. When you examine the underlying thought process it all equals a lack of trust. It requires a mentality that anything we do needs to be checked. We need to make sure I don’t fuck up or do something wrong. My professional experience, judgment, and knowledge are suspect and useless. It is really simply a vast statement of lack of respect too.

I cannot be trusted to make decisions.

What is Government For?

Humans are social animals. Groups of humans working together is the sole reason for our success. Physically, humans are truly weak. Yes, we have great intellect, but most of it is useless without other people. If humans were just individuals they would be food, and likely gone extinct. At the largest scale, the ability for humans to cooperate is government. It is essential for a town, state, or nation. The government is the very identity of our collective groups. The USA is defined by the government. This makes the hate of the government by so many, basically self-hatred.

Humans have a distinct limit on their capability to interact with others deeply. Evidence is that the limit is on the order of 100-150 people. The success of humanity is operating at the level of thousands or millions of people. To do this we need systems and institutions we all can coordinate our actions through. The assemblage of these systems and institutions is government. The government operates through a rulebook we know as the law. Thus the government coordinates the actions of the entire population. It cannot be distinguished from the people themself. The government is us. All of this should run on faith in the institutions. This is trust. What we really have in the United States today is a complete lack of trust.

Ideally, the government should be working for the best outcomes for the population. This is not happening. The way this has occurred is a draining of societal trust. It is a combination of social media, wealth inequality, corruption, and change that’s undermined it. The reaction to all of this is regulation. Every break in trust is met with regulation and regulation is expensive. A big part of this is the behavior of corporations. Basically corporate interest is now purely greed. That greed is not moderated by ethics or social cost. If they can make more money they will lie, cheat and steal. They will discriminate or pollute without any limits. Because of this we regulate and use that as the hedge to unbridled greed. The problem is that regulation is a very inefficient way to achieve the necessary limits.

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” ― Edward R. Murrow

Breaking the System

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” ― James Bovard

In all likelihood what the Trump administration will do is destroy much of our system. We can expect much of government to be shattered and broken in a couple years. The function of everything broken will simply drop. The need for these functions will not disappear. Every part of our current government is built to solve a societal problem. The inefficiency of the delivery is a completely different issue. If the government function is destroyed the problem will assert itself anew. It will not be efficient; it simply won’t be there.

We do need to recognize that our current inefficiency is the product of largess. After World War 2 the USA stood atop the world economically with wealth and power unrivaled. The only hedge against this supremacy was worry about the threat of the Soviet Union and nuclear armageddon. This allowed the USA to be extremely inefficient and get away with it. Those days are gone now. The USA is extremely rich, but also extremely unequal. The wealth is concentrated amongst a very small group. This state is corrosive to social trust and the seeds of revolution. It leads to instability that either leads to chaos or authoritarian rule. Neither outcome is good for a Nation.

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” ― Aldous Huxley

How a grifter like Trump or a greedy oligarch like Musk can fix this defies logic. People like them are the very reason the inefficient system exists. At the end of their destruction of government, the likely response is even less trust. That lack of trust will yield even less efficiency. The outcome will be chaos and suffering followed by even less trust and greater needless cost. Their efforts will not end well. Because the real root of the inefficiency is not addressed, the problem will simply compound. In the end, the population as a whole will suffer.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” ― Alan Moore

Fixing the System

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ― Ernest Hemingway

Americans would be far better off if we fixed the system by repairing it. As always to fix something, you need to know what is wrong with it. Fortunately, the root cause of government inefficiency is simple. A lack of trust. Or more to the point the lack of trust. The thing to realize is that failure of trust is extremely expensive. The government red tape is mostly related to not trusting our fellow Americans. We waste most of our money making sure other Americans aren’t wasting or stealing money.

“Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” ― Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman is the architect of shareholder value being the sole purpose of business. He is the founder of the level of inequality we see today. One of his mistakes was that wealth provides a way to pay off the ref. Today, the refs are owned by the business. His perspective like almost all extreme points of view is out of balance. Today, we are living with the consequences of this oversight and mistake. It is important to see how this mistake contributes to government being inefficient. Government becomes the friction society needs to control excesses of greed and power.

There are a bunch of steps we should be taking (and won’t any time soon). Chief among these is corporate governance. We would be far better off if corporate interests were aligned with the population’s interests. If greed was tempered with social and societal good, regulation could be moderated. Instead, we exist in a world where corporate decision-making is pure greed. Shareholder value is their North Star. Regulation is the only thing standing between them and ethical and moral crimes. Now corporate interests and oligarchs can buy the law. If the regulatory environment (the administrative state) is wrecked they will run wild. A catastrophe will follow at some point. Trust will plummet further and the reaction will end up being opposite to the intent. Society will be harmed and the population will suffer. This will not end well at all.

“None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have faith.” ― Paulo Coelho