The Gemba Panta Rei blog has an interesting post on lean government, specifically discussing the successes at the postal services in Denmark and Canada. Japan has also embarked on a lean postal service project, aided by senseis from Toyota. This

I don’t think we disagree. As a practical matter, I think the surest way to reduce govt debt, and debt servicing expenses, as a fraction of GDP, is to reduce the overall level of government spending. In theory government functionaries may invest money as productively as private individuals do, but I think it’s rarely true in practice.

Procedural safeguards are no substitute for political will and old-fashioned fiscal discipline.

Of course nothing will change for the better without the political will to do so. I hope that the Internet will facilitate creation of voter coalitions that can nudge legislators in the right direction.

Nuclear power for energy independence is a non-sequitur. i.e. a solution for the wrong problem.”

Not quite true. Hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells, used for transportation, require supplies of hydrogen and oxygen gas. Such supplies are produced by running an electrical current through water. Said electrical current coming from where? A nuclear power plant.

Practical hydro/oxy fuel cells require increased electrical production, the most efficient source of which is nuclear power.

Of course, this is predicated on the assumption that such fuel cells will become practical. As of yet, they are not.

“Isn’t debt service only a problem if the economy isn’t growing rapidly?”

Debt is not bad in itself, independently of economic growth, if it used to fund productive investment, as opposed to operating expenses. That is assuming government borrowing doesn’t crowd out private investment and that the public investments are really productive. Just like for private citizens – a mortgage or college education is good, credit card debt for consumption is bad. Government sucking all available funds is probably not a problem right now, if anything there is an oversupply of capital, although that could shift quickly if, say, the Chinese decide to stop pouring money into our fiscal house of cards.

Of course, therein lies the rub. Government bureaucrats are not known for their acumen. For one Arpanet/Internet funded in the sixties, how many $100M bridges to nowhere in Alaska?

Of course, this rejoins your argument – if you know money returned to the private sector in the form of tax cuts is going to be reinvested in productive uses like R&D or capital investment (e.g. as opposed to feeding a speculative real estate bubble or getting stowed in money market accounts, as probably happened in 2002-2003, or being invested abroad), the tax revenue from increased growth could offset the tax cut in the right circumstances just as effectively as spending it on public works would.

My point was actually different – given how big a proportion of the total budget debt finance already represents due to accumulated deficits, there isn’t that much room for maneuver to lower taxes sufficiently to raise growth durably. Sure, the short term spurt makes it possible to sustain higher levels of debt for a while, but at some point you have to repay the capital, not just interest.

That is:
Accept for a moment the liberal position on a given subject (any subject). For instance ‘saving for retirement’.

Then apply the most conservative methods you can manage to do that job.

Hint: Social Security isn’t it.
I picture a far less restricted ‘IRA’ arrangement. You have your own pre-tax account with the (insured) broker you choose. The government would no longer be saying “Give us your money and we’ll protect you later” but instead “Thou _shalt_ save enough to protect yourself”.

The levee’s done broke in Washington, and something like 310 billion (BILLION!) simoleons may soon come sluicing down upon the heads of the people of New Orleans and their loyal elected leaders like a gold-plated runaway freight train full of Rolex w…

My first time through, I cut a whopping $15 billion….oh, the agony! Next time, I took a longer look, and cut $201 billion. Here's what I ended up with: Budget Totals Old budget was $3748.1268 billion ($2673 billion in spending, $1075.1268 bil…

No bike paths, no statues, all letterhead is generic and the template can add the name of the current administration.

I think there should be a lottery, $100 a pop for a team of normal Americans to go thru the budgets like a fly over flypaper.

Congressional staffs and Congressional bennies are the first thing to go. They all get HSAs. No raises. A tax on Gucci Gulch. I also have no problem raising the entrance fee to our public lands, it is awfully low. Now that Katrina’s taken out our sugar production, good-bye subsidy. –

–And Democrats are pissed about the Medicare drug benefit because the crap the Republicans passed doesn’t help our senior citizens who are having to choose between food and the medicines they need -

Oh, please. How 80s. I’m surprised you didn’t mention dog food. Ever read about what a MN and Canuck tribe were cooking up? Opening up drug stores at the casin***os, supplied w/Canadian drugs. They wanted to go where their market was.

Complete and utter fantasy.

“Keep the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian; it’s good to preserve as much of our civilization’s data and artifacts as we can as insurance against a new Dark Age, as well as an aid to individual self-education.”

Yes you’ll need some preservation as you create your new Dark Age.

Amazing. The US is flushing it’self. How helpful, not even a whimper, just a whooshing noise ;).

PenGun
Do What Now ??? … Standards and Practices !

A market only works in the long run if its pricing mechanisms can factor in all of the costs/benefits/effects for all of the stakeholders. You and I agree to exchange value for value and both walk away satisfied. If either of is unsatisfied, we walk away and find a better business partner. But in the case of the parks, all of the stakeholders aren’t involved in the contract.

Let’s say the government sells the Grand Canyon to a garbage collection company. The government is no longer paying for upkeep and the price is great so we all get a tax break.

The company loves the spot because it’s already dug out and they just need to backfill with the garbage. They’ve got capacity for years. Their stockholders get a lot of value.

Great deal, right? Of course not. The Grand Canyon is not just a conveniently capacious hole in the ground. It’s a national treasure that needs to be saved for people who aren’t born yet and have no say in today’s transaction.

This is paper thin example. In any well run privitization program we would no doubt get much more money from a company planning to use the Grand Canyon as a tourist venue. But other sites would probably not be so obviously valuable in their current sustainable use.

We just couldn’t afford the uncontrolled negative externalities of this transaction.

Why are they idiotic?

You realize that this item also includes basic workplace safety laws and oversight, right? Do we really want to go back to 120 years ago when 35,000 workers were killed on the job every year out of a population 1/5th the size of today’s?

There was some deregulation activity going on around the same time. Deregulation is a good way to light a fire under the economy and thus indirectly boost tax revenue.

I think it makes a lot of sense.