Thinking about Wasted Taxes

If I begin, "Don't you just hate having your tax dollars wasted", most people will jump for joy.  They feel the hatred, the disgust, and the anger.  But they are not  thinkingˆ.  I want to encourage us to think.

Given the old saw that whenever I point the finger at someone three fingers are pointing back at me, I want to think about this:  "Do I ever work at less than 100% efficiency?"  Ask yourself that question, especially if you work for private enterprise.  If you EVER work at less than 100% efficiency you are wasting someone's money and time.

How about your spouse, if you are married?  How about your good friends, the folks you work out with, or go to church with, or play a pickup game of basketball with?  Do any of them ever work at less than 100% efficiency?  (You can pause and curse them here, and then get back to thinking.)

"But the government is so crammed with waste!"

So is business.  Any business that has more than forty or forty-one employees has one or more wasteful processes in place, well on the way to becoming hallowed "ways we have always done it." I watched several guys working for a private contractor standing around the other day.  Wasteful!  My buddy was riding with me and he immediately assumed they were city workers.  No, they worked for a private contractor who has not gotten everything scheduled perfectly.  They needed a truck that had not arrived before they could work the next piece of the project. 

Think about it.  Was the crew standing around being wasteful, or was the administrator who scheduled poorly, or was the problem heavy traffic that held up the truck for which they were waiting?

Think about it.  Is less than 100% efficiency in everything even remotely possible in a complex world?

We will keep thinking together about this.  Post a comment and let us know what you think.