It is unfortunate that recent elections have become so blurred by the bickering over who is a true liberal or a true conservative that we ignore who would make the most effective president—A “can-do” leader able to clean up the mess in Washington and make government operations efficient and fair–the servant of all the people, not just those at the top. That requires experienced management ability, and yet we elect amateurs to office who have never managed anything.
The words liberal and conservative serve merely to confuse the voters. What counts is action—who will actually do something to break the partisan stalemate, create a thriving economy, and restore American leadership in the world. Such action does not need to follow any ideological lines to help—simple good management would do wonders. For example, the biggest problems in Washington are not caused by partisan or ideological differences. Everyone agrees that the Veteran’s Administration is poorly run and must be reorganized. No one questions the need for full support to help wounded veterans. The problems there could be solved by just applying good management practices. And yet we elect amateurs, who appoint political cronies, who hold office, and have no clue how to run them.
We are in the hands of people who have never held management positions! We give them trillions of tax dollars to spend and they cannot even budget the process or control the debt. Similarly, with entitlements—no one questions the need for a safety net but our leaders have created thousands of programs in dozens of agencies and departments and make no effort to control the dispersal of funds or the actual needs of the recipients. The mess screams for efficient management to address the acute needs of the deserving and weed out the false claims of the undeserving. Same with immigration—at present the State Department can’t keep track of the no-fly list and there are millions of people on the Social Security rolls who were born before 1900! The number of individuals on disability has doubled during Obama’s administration, suggesting widespread unfairness and injustices in the granting of these subsidies,
Perhaps the biggest morass of inefficiency in government is the IRS which with its thousands of pages of regulations and court interpretations which burden everyone with their huge costs of compliance. It is estimated that our businesses and workers spend hundreds of billions of dollars, not in taxes, but just to meet the tax law requirements. If we could get to a simple flat tax or a one page income tax return, those savings would all flow into a greatly —expanded economy. Thus, just employing sound established management practices could address many of the problems that burden the country. Instead, our gang of amateurs just keep throwing money at the problems and sweep the disastrous results under the carpet.
(The need to place good management ahead of ideological bickering is developed more fully in my recent book Saving Democracy! which describes the type of plain-speaking and honest leaders needed to address these big issues head-on)