GridLock

Too many Chiefs ignoring the Indians

     The Federal Government is 5 trillion dollars in debt, and here we have the Chiefs of government with a proposal to raise the pay of federal workers by 3%. In my opinion, this is insufficient.  Let us raise the pay by 4% or more.  What?! That makes no sense! As usual, the devil is in the details. Much of our current budget debate is focused at devolving government from the Federal government back to States. While a laudable goal, the only achievement of this approach to governing has been political gridlock and the reality that the states are at times no better than the federal government when it comes to wasteful bureaucracies.

     It is time to redirect the focus of the budget battle.  If you can't reform from the top down, reform from the bottom up. Scrap the 3% pay raise for federal workers and institute a fixed process rather than fixed contract for determining pay. The advantage is that a process can have incentives to promote productive cost savings behavior that is not necessarily promoted by a fixed contract that basically provide no incentives other than showing up for work.  Below is a rough outline of such a process.  The numbers are for the sake of example only and can be adjusted, so long as one keeps the dual goals of promoting individual incentive and quality cost effective government in mind.

     The approach of achieving cost effective quality by bringing the workers into the process has been found successful in industry after industry where it has been tried.  Under such a system :

     What has been defined above is a simple self sustaining process for getting the federal budget under control by individual initiative rather than top down political edicts.  There is a process that empowers the capable government employees to work toward the goal of cost effective government.  Who knows, it may be possible to achieve a balanced budget much sooner than anticipated without the cries of CUT, CUT, CUT.

     Too much of our political process is focused on bashing heads at the top.  This has resulted in political gridlock that can be measured in 5 trillion dollars of debt and waste. Our nation's strength comes from recognizing and utilizing the power of the individual.  It is time that our political leaders rest their sore heads and empower the creative individuals of this nation sort out the problems that our leaders have found unable to resolve.

     Now you know what I think, what do you think?

Always Right