Waste in Government
Waste in Government—always a nice term, sounds like it means something.
What you will see as you go through these readings is the difficulty of agreement
(as understood through public opinion polls)–what government waste means, or
what we agree upon to exactly go after. The Government Accountability Office
(GAO) report is quite long —you want to read parts of it but not
necessarily the whole thing. What you need to get out of that report is to
understand the specifics associated with going after waste (or in the case of that
report—duplication or overlap).
Talk about the difficulty of agreement on the public side regarding
going after government waste (as you can understand it through the readings
addressing public opinion polls) and then get to specifics on what to go after, why,
and how. A friend (an elected official) jokes about government critics: That
particular person defines a government critic as someone with a driver’s license,
they just don’t know where they are going.
demonstrate that you have some understanding of the issues associated with
where you are going. It is easy to criticize in some general, vague sort of way—it
is difficult to get to specifics. “Big government” is always one of those terms that
seems to mean something on a nightly cable news show, the specifics on how
exactly to cut “waste” out of Social Security, Medicare, defense spending, well
that’s a different story.
A 2008 survey asked respondents if they had used any of 21 different Federal
government social programs including Social Security, unemployment benefits, or
student loans. Of those respondents, 94 percent said they had not used any
government social program, when, in fact, they had. The average number of
programs used was four. The actor, Craig Nelson, in an interview with Glen Beck,
when he was on FOX News, said, “I’ve been on food stamps, anyone help me
out?” seeming to miss the contradiction of his statement. No doubt, Nelson (as
well as Beck) think of themselves as critics of Big Government that is filled with
waste, but probably have difficulty getting to the specifics—the generalizations
are good enough. the generalizations are not good enough—
get to the specifics: What are you addressing and why and how do you look at the
money saved?
1) should be a minimum of five typed double spaced)
2) Do discuss some of the specifics in the GAO report
3) After reading the pieces addressing public opinion polls how do they give
you some insight into how to understand what can and cannot be
accomplished. You need to understand that the public, in many ways, is a
brake upon what public officials can achieve: Public officials cannot be way
out in front of the public, public opinion, or public understanding, often
provides the parameters within which policy options, policy choices, can
feasibly exist.
4) Notice how the readings address the topic of government waste quite
differently than what exists on the nightly cable news shows—do
incorporate those readings