Of Course They Don’t

I don’t believe most of the American Public realizes that their government is failing by design. If it was a war we were talking about, it would be called treason. In that we’re not at war (uh, wait a minute...) it’s called “smaller government”. From Government Executive:

FAA falls down on workforce planning

”A Transportation Department inspector general report published last week found FAA's acquisition workforce does not have the skills or expertise to manage the agency's multibillion-dollar contracting budget. FAA's workforce plan does not address gaps in hiring and developing staff, nor does the agency follow established targets for balancing acquisition employees across programs, according to the audit.”

Well, if your goal is to rob the government blind, of course they don’t have an expert workforce. The experts are all supposed to be on the other side of the table -- the private side. I mean, if you’re in charge of the government and your political philosophy is that “private industry is better” it would be pretty silly to hire the best and brightest to be in government. You’d be fighting against your own political philosophy.

Think of it as a boxing match. If you want one guy to win (private industry), what better way to ensure that he wins than to become the manager of the other fighter (government) and sabotage his chances? Don’t train. Buy him inferior equipment. Let the other guy in on all his weaknesses.

If the government is supposed to negotiate with private industry and you hate government...why would you want government to win? I’ll never understand why even our simplest-minded citizens can’t understand this. As we contract out more and more of our government, private industry skims off more and more of our taxes.

Government isn’t supposed to win this fight. So we don’t hire enough people to oversee the increasing number of contracts and we don’t provide them with adequate training. Should a truly talented individual accidentally slip through the net, private industry can throw enough money at them to lure them away from government. And should the rare individual that can’t be bought rear their ugly head, we’ll take the teeth out of the whistleblower protections we used to have and run them out of government.

To be honest, I’m surprised we even have an Inspector General anymore. I guess appearance must be maintained.

Don Brown
September 7, 2011