Government at a Crossroads
Americans don't want government to provide for every need. But as taxpayers we expect government to perform its functions well.
At home, we expect government to pick up the trash and keep the drinking water safe. On the road, we expect the streets to be paved and plowed. We want government to ensure sanitary food preparation in restaurants and the rapid cleanup of roadside toxic spills. For our children, we expect school bus drivers to be qualified and school lunches to be nourishing. In an emergency, we expect 911 to respond immediately, and we assume the public hospital will admit us whether we have insurance coverage or not.
Governments at every level perform countless functions to keep society going; often we don't see all that goes on behind the scenes. But despite the many services Americans enjoy, people are losing faith in government's ability to provide them.
The perception has grown that we're not getting our money's worth from government, that the public sector is singularly wasteful, inefficient and bureaucratic. For anyone who has driven over the same pothole, stood in endless licensing lines or waited hours for emergency service, this perception has a strong basis in reality.
While some find it tempting to seek scapegoats for this apparent breakdown in public sector efficiency, the blame-game serves no purpose and misses the real reason why government is not performing as well as it could.
The simple truth is this: as our society has grown larger and more complex, and as the need for public services has multiplied, governments at every level have clung to old and outmoded management structures that stifle service delivery and inhibit the ability of front-line employees to meet the public's changing needs.
Just as private industry cannot compete in today's high-tech economy without completely overhauling the old assembly-line production model, the public sector cannot provide essential services effectively and efficiently by sticking with the inflexible, hierarchical and bureaucratic organization of old. It is time to redesign government for the twenty-first century.
There is no more magic to redesigning government than there is to restructuring the workplace in a private company. Government can work better. Services can improve. Tax dollars can stretch to meet more needs. It just takes recognizing that a public sector management structure designed nearly a century ago is becoming increasingly outmoded and counterproductive today.
