DOGE and Running Government Like a Business

This line invariably comes up.  At the coffee shop.  On Fox News and MSNBC.  In tweets and in local papers.  Usually, this is when some thing goes awry.  Taxes go up.  An infrastructure project extends it’s project timeline and thus costs.  A local government official conducts some nefarious activity.   Now, at the Federal level - we see it with DOGE and the (somewhat tired term, frankly), “waste, fraud and abuse.”

The cries then come up “If we ran government like a business….”   The politicians running for local, state or federal government office come out and decry the situation and lament that business-like principles of corporate America are not infused enough into the public sector.  I would then ask - like what company/business? Enron? Worldcom? KMart? Adelphia?

Look, there are certainly elements to emulate — efficiency, compensation strategies and technological use come to mind — of the private sector. However, their bottom line is materially different. It relates to shareholder value and profit-margins. The public sector is servicing the community with essential and vital public services. A recommended strategy: A balanced, rifle-vs-shotgun approach, understanding the nuances of government work and borrowing translatable and transferable best practices from our private sector counterparts to, yes, gain efficiencies, and yes, weed out WF&A.