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CarmeHppson posted on 10/23/2009 2:58:00 PM
As a former state employee with the Department of Public Welfare, I wish the public would take a day to walk in the shoes of a caseworker. I was hired 20 years ago and received the best training available to serve the citizens of Pennsylvania. The length of this training spanned over a one year period to prepare me to accurately and timely provide the services to assist and later remove one from the welfare rolls.
Today, new hires receive less than two months of training and serve three times as many customers. Management is lead by numbers, not people. There is no leadership displayed in the local offices and suggestions are ignored due to the source of the information.
Talk about mismanagement, Harrisburg has continued to hire managers and fewer caseworkers for the frontline to service the public with efficiency. Taxpayers don’t know the whole truth so is distorting the truth…
I read the Auditor General’s report with a feeling of business as usual.
Jason Beigh posted on 10/1/2009 3:48:00 AM
This commentary just points out another example of government inefficiency.
I challenge anyone who reads this post, to give me one example of a government program that works. By "works" I mean that it actually achieves the purpose it was originally meant to achieve, it operates within the budget that was originally set for the project, and it does so more efficiently than what could be achieved by the private sector.
There are none! I have been asking that question since I heard it asked by Harry Brown back in the early 90’s, and have never heard a good answer. I often hear answers like social security, public education, or the US postal system. It’s not hard to discredit any of those types of answers fairly quickly. My favorite answer to debunk are the farm subsidies that are paid to multi billion dollar agro-businesses.
After that, I typically ask the person to name their favorite government program, and their most despised government program. Then comes the important question... Would you be willing to see your favorite government program done away with and replaced with a free market solution, if it meant that you did not have to pay for the government program you are not in favor of. For example, if you are in favor of government funding for the arts, would you give that up so that your tax money would not be spent bailing out Wall Street? Almost every time, the person says “YES, I would give up my favorite program for that”!
So, if most people agree that government is too big, and doing many things they don’t approve of, how and why has government been able to grow so huge and out of control? This commentary explains it perfectly by stating “The more clients they have, the more funding they can obtain, creating greater job security for the bureaucrats.” Both elected government officials, and hired bureaucrats have an incentive to grow the size of government, the same way a CEO or a company employee have an incentive to grow a corporation. For them public dependence means greater power, more money, and job security.
This problem will only be solved via huge reform. We need to limit the amount money government can spend, and remove the incentives for people to become career politicians. Most people in politics are there for power and money. They get their power from the ability to enact legislation that effects individuals and businesses. They get their money from their high salaries and from the perks they receive from lobbyists vying for their attention.
Here in Pennsylvania, we first need to return our legislature to a “citizen legislature” made up of average Pennsylvanians, rather than elite lawyers who have made a career of finding new ways to waste our money. States like Wyoming, Oregon, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Idaho are able to operate this way. Many states such as Texas the second-most-populous state, have a part time legislature. Texas' 181 lawmakers meet for a maximum of 140 days in odd-numbered years. They don't meet in even-numbered years unless the governor calls them into special session. Other states like New Hampshire have a large number of part time legislators who are paid a small stipend of a few hundred dollars a year for their public service. With 424 members, the General Court of New Hampshire is the largest state legislature in the United States. This limits the power any one legislator has, and removes any financial incentive for them to be a career politician.
As for the rest of the bureaucrats, I would be in favor of empowering our public servants to run their departments the same way many private companies are run. Often times, department managers are given financial incentives to “trim the fat” from their department. I recommend giving every government employee the ability to suggest long term, sustainable cost cutting measures, and if enacted sharing a significant percentage of the first years savings with that employee. If someone can save the taxpayers of this state $1,000,000 a year indefinitely, I would happily reward them with a bonus of $250,000 the first year. The only bonuses that should be able to be given with taxpayer money, are bonuses that are based on a state employee saving the taxpayers money.
Well, I guess it never hurts to dream. Keep up the good fight. ( http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-29-2009/ron-paul)
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