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I'd be interested to know if there has ever been a period in history where the size of the federal government has gotten smaller in terms of total employees. A

by pmorici 17y ago

I'd be interested to know if there has ever been a period in history where the size of the federal government has gotten smaller in terms of total employees. Anyone who has ever listened to a government manager talk at any level for any length of time will here them say something to the effect of "we just don't have enough people and resources". Case and point, after hurricane katrina, http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0806/081896cdpm1.htm http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0806/081896cdpm1.htm FEMA claims they are under staffed. There really is no incentive for anyone in any corner of government to be efficient. If they start doing the same work with less money and less employees it reduces the clout of their department because they have less money and less employees and consequently less power and standing within the system. In business doing something for less increases profit in government there is no such incentive and likely an incentive to the other extreme.

Retric 17y ago
There are significant incentives for doing more with less. However, there is also a constant stream of new things to do which cost more money. It's more a case where the government only looks for effecency in areas it has been doing for a while. So the Social Security Administration is lean. But, Nasa is a bloated cow.
- solutionyogi 17y ago
  Would you care to point out few incentives for doing more with less? Government programs/departments are NEVER about doing more with less.
  - Retric 17y ago
    Geting promoted at the individual level is often related to standing out. The way you stand out in the government is to start a new project which either increases effecency or does something new. Unfortunatly starting a new program is far less risky at the professional level becuase it's harder to fail. Saving money requres an existing process with a well known goal and cost. EX: Saving money on toner cartigaes by changing the default faunt on a government document. PS: I was part of the EISP program which reduces the cost to create ISP documentation by half. The contractors where not happy about this, but the government loved it.
    - mnemonicsloth 17y ago
      Or recommending the use of semicolons in situations where a whole colon is overkill? The real problem, I suspect, isn't so much the waste caused by all those failproof projects. It's that, five or ten years down the line, the obvious solution to a real problem will have a side effect that diminishes the importance of some bureaucrat's carefully guarded little empire.
    - solutionyogi 17y ago
      I didn't know that Government gives promotion based on meritocracy. I have been working in US for 5 years now and even in for-profit corporations, seniority (and not meritocracy) plays a big role while deciding who gets promotion and who doesn't. And I hope you are kidding with your toner cartridge example. I doubt if toner costs more than 0.1% of the total project costs, by reducing toner costs, you have achieved nothing. And if someone does get promoted because of this 'cost cutting' idea, it shows dilbert management and nothing else.
      - Retric 17y ago
        For some projects / groups, printing costs are ~30% of the total budget. A good example is sending out ~200,000,000 Social Security statements. At some point within the Social Security Administration it's just a few people running an automated system. This is when Toyota style continuous process improvement can make things lean. PS: It's true that people who have been around for a long time tend to be promoted, but those who innovate and network tend to get promoted faster.
callmeed 17y ago
"a period in history where the size of the federal government has gotten smaller in terms of total employees" While I totally agree with your point, I see a problem with this specific statement. The population as a whole is usually growing, so a government has to grow in order to support it (at least somewhat). But, yes, efficiency is the problem.
MikeCapone 17y ago
It's a simple fact that people will never be as careful spending other people's money as they would be spending their own...
- pmorici 17y ago
  That doesn't go to explain the whole difference between business and government though. Presumably start-up owners don't view venture capital as their own money yet the good ones still spend it carefully.
  - brk 17y ago
    In a way though, VC money IS your money. Your reputation is on the line, and if you spend/manage the money wisely, there is a great potential windfall for you in the future.
    - chez17 17y ago
      >Your reputation is on the line, and if you spend/manage the money wisely, there is a great potential windfall for you in the future. I don't see that being any different than government.
      - anamax 17y ago
        >> if you spend/manage the money wisely, there is a great potential windfall for you in the future. > I don't see that being any different than government. Oh really? What is the "windfall"? (It's not supposed to be money in govt.) And, if it's the same, why is the typical govt service so bad?
        psranga 17y ago
        I don't know about you. But I'm 100% satisfied with the US/State govt services I've interacted with (IRS, USCIS, DMV, Social Security, USPS, BART). My most horrifying experiences were with the private sector (1) to clear up identity theft that happened to me, (2) admitted inaccurate billing by a dentist.
umjames 17y ago
Not all of business believes in more efficiency as you describe it. I'd argue that most IT departments are just as much a jobs program as NASA, and probably for a lot of the same reasons.
- gaius 17y ago
  I can remember 3 huge contractions in the IT industry (early 90s recession, NASDAQ meltdown, present day). When was there ever a comparable mass-layoff scenario in the government?
  - Retric 17y ago
    End of Civial war, WW I, WW II, and Vietnam. Most of these represented far larger drops in government employment than the end of .Com.
    - gaius 17y ago
      Releasing conscripts is hardly the same thing!
      - Retric 17y ago
        A large number of people signed up for each of those conflicts and where let go. Granted, there were also a large number of conscripts, but even ignoring conscripts they were huge reductions in the government workforce. Edit: The Works Progress Administration (WPA) is another example which was closed down by Congress and the war boom in 1943 and provided almost 8 million jobs between 1935 and 1943. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration) After employing 8 million people.
gaius 17y ago
At the time he said it, it might have been true, that's the thing. A government department will be understaffed the few days of the year when they have to deal with a crisis, and they'll all be sitting around shuffling paperwork back and forth to each other the rest of the time. What's needed is a flexible structure with fewer people all of whom are capable of fulfilling whatever role is needed right now. Historically that has been prevented by "demarcation dispute", e.g. X union claiming only its members have the "right" to perform Y task.
jfoutz 17y ago
Grover Cleveland did pretty well his first term. Eliminated the spoils system, got rid of a bunch of time server type jobs.
ajscherer 17y ago
I with you that it is a problem of incentives, but I disagree that it has much to do with managers desiring more employees to increase their clout. Simpler explanations exist. If a government manager fires an employee, what does she gain? She doesn't get any of that employee's salary (the tax savings won't move the needle at all on a personal level), and won't appear to be doing a better job, since there is no profit with which to measure performance. On the other hand this manager has a lot to lose. First, most people find putting others out of a job unpleasant. Second, that manager and her co-workers will now have to absorb the duties of the fired employee. So more work for her. Third, the department would probably be exposed to litigation by the fired employee. In my experience government agencies don't fare very well in court, and the government is scrutinized much more closely for things like nepotism and racism than the private sector. There is another issue at work here, which is that legislators have much stronger incentives to add parts to the government than to remove them. Sure, there are plenty of voters who favor making the government smaller in general, but for any particular program the number of people who care deeply about preserving that program is always greater than the number of people who care deeply about removing it. People simply don't have the time to study all parts of the government and advocate against the existence of unnecessary but small programs. The people who are served by those programs (or sell things to the government in support of them) have all the reason in the world to care. Actual reform of the system (instead of general pouting at the size of government) would require removing a large number of small programs, and this is unlikely to happen for the reason I just mentioned.
- dasil003 17y ago
  but for any particular program the number of people who care deeply about preserving that program is always greater than the number of people who care deeply about removing it. This strikes me as the most significant factor at work in the constant inflation of the government, and it's a really tricky problem.
- fburnaby 17y ago
  Very well put.
GHFigs 17y ago
It's Parkinson's Law in effect. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=731683 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=731683
ggchappell 17y ago
> I'd be interested to know if there has ever been a period in history where the size of the federal government has gotten smaller in terms of total employees. I think right at the end of a major war would be a good place to look.

by pmorici 17y ago

Retric 17y ago

There are significant incentives for doing more with less. However, there is also a constant stream of new things to do which cost more money. It's more a case where the government only looks for effecency in areas it has been doing for a while. So the Social Security Administration is lean. But, Nasa is a bloated cow.

solutionyogi 17y ago
Would you care to point out few incentives for doing more with less? Government programs/departments are NEVER about doing more with less.
- Retric 17y ago
  Geting promoted at the individual level is often related to standing out. The way you stand out in the government is to start a new project which either increases effecency or does something new. Unfortunatly starting a new program is far less risky at the professional level becuase it's harder to fail. Saving money requres an existing process with a well known goal and cost. EX: Saving money on toner cartigaes by changing the default faunt on a government document. PS: I was part of the EISP program which reduces the cost to create ISP documentation by half. The contractors where not happy about this, but the government loved it.
  - mnemonicsloth 17y ago
    Or recommending the use of semicolons in situations where a whole colon is overkill? The real problem, I suspect, isn't so much the waste caused by all those failproof projects. It's that, five or ten years down the line, the obvious solution to a real problem will have a side effect that diminishes the importance of some bureaucrat's carefully guarded little empire.
  - solutionyogi 17y ago
    I didn't know that Government gives promotion based on meritocracy. I have been working in US for 5 years now and even in for-profit corporations, seniority (and not meritocracy) plays a big role while deciding who gets promotion and who doesn't. And I hope you are kidding with your toner cartridge example. I doubt if toner costs more than 0.1% of the total project costs, by reducing toner costs, you have achieved nothing. And if someone does get promoted because of this 'cost cutting' idea, it shows dilbert management and nothing else.
    - Retric 17y ago
      For some projects / groups, printing costs are ~30% of the total budget. A good example is sending out ~200,000,000 Social Security statements. At some point within the Social Security Administration it's just a few people running an automated system. This is when Toyota style continuous process improvement can make things lean. PS: It's true that people who have been around for a long time tend to be promoted, but those who innovate and network tend to get promoted faster.

callmeed 17y ago

"a period in history where the size of the federal government has gotten smaller in terms of total employees" While I totally agree with your point, I see a problem with this specific statement. The population as a whole is usually growing, so a government has to grow in order to support it (at least somewhat). But, yes, efficiency is the problem.

MikeCapone 17y ago

It's a simple fact that people will never be as careful spending other people's money as they would be spending their own...

pmorici 17y ago
That doesn't go to explain the whole difference between business and government though. Presumably start-up owners don't view venture capital as their own money yet the good ones still spend it carefully.
- brk 17y ago
  In a way though, VC money IS your money. Your reputation is on the line, and if you spend/manage the money wisely, there is a great potential windfall for you in the future.
  - chez17 17y ago
    >Your reputation is on the line, and if you spend/manage the money wisely, there is a great potential windfall for you in the future. I don't see that being any different than government.
    - anamax 17y ago
      >> if you spend/manage the money wisely, there is a great potential windfall for you in the future. > I don't see that being any different than government. Oh really? What is the "windfall"? (It's not supposed to be money in govt.) And, if it's the same, why is the typical govt service so bad?
      - psranga 17y ago
        I don't know about you. But I'm 100% satisfied with the US/State govt services I've interacted with (IRS, USCIS, DMV, Social Security, USPS, BART). My most horrifying experiences were with the private sector (1) to clear up identity theft that happened to me, (2) admitted inaccurate billing by a dentist.

umjames 17y ago

Not all of business believes in more efficiency as you describe it. I'd argue that most IT departments are just as much a jobs program as NASA, and probably for a lot of the same reasons.

gaius 17y ago
I can remember 3 huge contractions in the IT industry (early 90s recession, NASDAQ meltdown, present day). When was there ever a comparable mass-layoff scenario in the government?
- Retric 17y ago
  End of Civial war, WW I, WW II, and Vietnam. Most of these represented far larger drops in government employment than the end of .Com.
  - gaius 17y ago
    Releasing conscripts is hardly the same thing!
    - Retric 17y ago
      A large number of people signed up for each of those conflicts and where let go. Granted, there were also a large number of conscripts, but even ignoring conscripts they were huge reductions in the government workforce. Edit: The Works Progress Administration (WPA) is another example which was closed down by Congress and the war boom in 1943 and provided almost 8 million jobs between 1935 and 1943. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration) After employing 8 million people.

gaius 17y ago

At the time he said it, it might have been true, that's the thing. A government department will be understaffed the few days of the year when they have to deal with a crisis, and they'll all be sitting around shuffling paperwork back and forth to each other the rest of the time. What's needed is a flexible structure with fewer people all of whom are capable of fulfilling whatever role is needed right now. Historically that has been prevented by "demarcation dispute", e.g. X union claiming only its members have the "right" to perform Y task.

jfoutz 17y ago

Grover Cleveland did pretty well his first term. Eliminated the spoils system, got rid of a bunch of time server type jobs.

ajscherer 17y ago

I with you that it is a problem of incentives, but I disagree that it has much to do with managers desiring more employees to increase their clout. Simpler explanations exist. If a government manager fires an employee, what does she gain? She doesn't get any of that employee's salary (the tax savings won't move the needle at all on a personal level), and won't appear to be doing a better job, since there is no profit with which to measure performance. On the other hand this manager has a lot to lose. First, most people find putting others out of a job unpleasant. Second, that manager and her co-workers will now have to absorb the duties of the fired employee. So more work for her. Third, the department would probably be exposed to litigation by the fired employee. In my experience government agencies don't fare very well in court, and the government is scrutinized much more closely for things like nepotism and racism than the private sector. There is another issue at work here, which is that legislators have much stronger incentives to add parts to the government than to remove them. Sure, there are plenty of voters who favor making the government smaller in general, but for any particular program the number of people who care deeply about preserving that program is always greater than the number of people who care deeply about removing it. People simply don't have the time to study all parts of the government and advocate against the existence of unnecessary but small programs. The people who are served by those programs (or sell things to the government in support of them) have all the reason in the world to care. Actual reform of the system (instead of general pouting at the size of government) would require removing a large number of small programs, and this is unlikely to happen for the reason I just mentioned.

dasil003 17y ago
but for any particular program the number of people who care deeply about preserving that program is always greater than the number of people who care deeply about removing it. This strikes me as the most significant factor at work in the constant inflation of the government, and it's a really tricky problem.
fburnaby 17y ago
Very well put.

GHFigs 17y ago

It's Parkinson's Law in effect. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=731683 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=731683

ggchappell 17y ago

> I'd be interested to know if there has ever been a period in history where the size of the federal government has gotten smaller in terms of total employees. I think right at the end of a major war would be a good place to look.