[quote=CA renter]Sorry, flu, but you’re wrong about the system being set up to be inefficient and lethargic, and also about nobody wanting to save money and reduce spending. The public sector gets a lot more done with less money than most private entities. Just because Fox News spews a lot of BS about the inefficiency of govt/efficiency of the private sector, it doesn’t make it true. If you compare apples to apples, you’ll see that a lot of government activities are carried out for a lot less money than what private companies could do it for, and they often handle more complex situations, and do it faster and better as well.
Yes, the government is top-heavy, and there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse (especially where private contractors and RE developers are concerned). But that tends to be concentrated at the political level, not at the ground level. When people compare things like the AAA vs the DMV, they often forget that the DMV processes far more transactions and also handles the most complex jobs.[/quote]
I’ve worked in both and I have to say that the private sector tends to be more efficient with it’s business processes. The problem with most government services is a convoluted set of business processes that slowly built up over time. The reason privatization doesn’t work that well is because the private sector isn’t allowed to change the business process I.e. the Red Tape that never goes away even when you try to privatize. A private company might have a really efficient way of processing water bills but they have no understanding of all the quirky business rules involved so the private sector gets bogged down with the funky rules and end up with cost overruns.
Say you privatized trash collection but forced the private company to pick up trash on the exact same routes/times even if they were extremely inefficient. Your private company might be able to design a route to pick up all the trash in 4 days with 20% less miles driving but if the government tells you can’t do that because the citizens are used to the old way and can’t be asked to change, then of course it’s going to cost more. That was my experience in working with the city. Too many egos with inefficient processes that they weren’t willing to change even if they was a better way to do things.
Of course when you’ve worked in that environment you either believe that your process is actually efficient or you just accept it because efforts to change it are met with too much resistance.