this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
152 points (90.4% liked)

politics

18885 readers
3695 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
  2. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  3. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  4. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  6. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News

• World News

• Business News

• Political Discussion

• Ask Politics

• Military News

• Global Politics

• Moderate Politics

• Progressive Politics

• UK Politics

• Canadian Politics

• Australian Politics

• New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
outrageousmatter
aidan
jordanlund
HLMenckenFan
little_cow
152
America needs a bigger, better bureaucracy (www.noahpinion.blog)
submitted 11 months ago by BeautifulMind to c/politics
19 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It might be a controversial take, sure, but the linked article/post makes a pretty thoughtful case for the benefits of having functional state capacity vs. outsourcing or just not having it

top 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 57 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

The concept of outsourcing government services never made sense to me. Ostensibly it's to reduce costs, but the company has a vested interest in lobbying for as much funding as possible, and delivering as little service as possible. Without a huge amount of oversight we can't have a system like that. Which means we have to pay for a bureaucracy and to fund the program.

That being said, we can eliminate a lot of cost and resentment of social programs by making them universal. There's a reason Social Security is a third rail: Everybody gets it, so everybody has a stake in preserving it.

[–] Boddhisatva 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Government does not exist to make a profit. Private companies do. Outsourcing services to a private company cannot save money in the long run. Instead of paying for just the costs to administer and provide the service, we, the taxpayers, now need to pay both of those costs plus a percentage more that the company needs to make to stay in business.

The idea that competition in the private sector will somehow breed innovation and efficiency is a lie.

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt 3 points 11 months ago

My opinion is that the true gain of outsourcing is that the private company can cut corners until it gets caught. Then it can change it's name and bid for the same job. So it can in fact be much more efficient, just at the cost of quality.

It also gives poloticians a way to trade favors with each other. Politician A gets a donation from the private company. So Politician B helps that company win the bid. In return A votes for Bs bill. Without that, how would any bill ever get passed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

With a government that had ample bidders and that made sure that there's good requirements for the bids, made sure they're followed through and whatnot could get away with outsourcing stuff. And hell, it might be more efficient in some cases. But often it just falls flat in some regard. Often with the service ending up more costly and shittier to the citizen than the government service.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Even in an ideal situation you'd need a government agency to oversee the bidding process, and to monitor the services to ensure they're effective. I just don't see how that ends up saving money, especially when the company has to also make a profit.

Plus, there's some things government handles that shouldn't ever have a profit motive. And ideal society would have zero prisons, but there's an entire prison industry in the US that has a vested interest in growing the prison population.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

If we're talking about a big operation then the bidding savings can be dwarfed by the cost of overseeing the project. Not to mention the government needs to oversee its own work too, to make sure an acceptable result.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Bureaucracy is one of those things that people like to bash, but don't really spend much time considering what it is or what it's meant for.

"Bureaucracy is when stupid form" is a superficial understanding of an organizational structure intended to:

  • mirror the dominant governing structure, so everyone has a shared frame of reference for how decisions get made
  • help keep authority is tied to a position/role rather than to an individual to reduce instances of nepotism and favoritism
  • standardize oversight structures so there's a clear accountability chain
  • champion expertise so there are people who comprehend important peripheral aspects of a discipline/profession/industry that can cause compounding downstream issues

There are certainly poorly run, poorly organized, and intentionally misused bureaucracies. And we all have nightmare stories of getting bound up in procedural hell. But organizational alternatives for large, complex organizations usually end up being less efficient and more convoluted while also being less effective.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

The issue has always been reduction of red tape and corruption and then appropriate funding not whether bureaucracy should exist at all. Glad to some movement away from generalized "bureaucracy bad" takes on the matter.

[–] Comet_Tracer 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Why did they use a still from 'Everything Everywhere All At Once'?

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is a picture of Deirdre Beaubeirdre, a character from the comedy sci-fi movie Everything Everywhere All At Once — an IRS auditor who hounds the immigrant protagonists mercilessly. I loved that movie, but I also thought Deirdre’s character was emblematic of a common and unhelpful way that Americans tend to think about the civil service.

[–] Comet_Tracer 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, I probably should have just read the article, lol.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I didn't read the article until I saw your question!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Well it's a clear example.of bureaucracy tbh. And it's funny specially with those trophies back there.

[–] Not_mikey 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Enforcing environmental regulation via judicialized procedural review has had devastating consequences on America’s ability to build the thing we need. Housing projects are routinely held up by NIMBYs using environmental review laws to sue developers, often under the most ridiculous of pretexts

The other side to this is that it only protects the people wealthy, organized and well connected enough to sue in the first place. This incentives developers to target lower income rental areas to get around this friction. Don't want to pick a fight with all the nimbys in the affluent neighborhood, just build your luxury apartment complex in the poor rental neighborhood, where the average person doesn't even know their councilman, much less that there's gonna be a town hall on whether to build this gentrifying complex that will probably increase your rent. You don't even have to pay attention to the environmental toll then, what're they going to do, sue with all their money going to rent and necessities? The landlords, who do have money, don't give a shit about the long term health of their tenants and don't live there so they won't do anything either.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

This is absolutely why infrastructure costs so much in the US.