Government waste and how to better control it

Today I read a story on the Washington Post about military spending that absolutely floored me.  It essentially states that we have as many people working in support services as we do for all the active duty military personnel combined.  That means for every front line soldier there is one person paying bills, buying supplies, and doing other administrative tasks.  This information comes from an internal Pentagon study and estimates are there are $125 billion in over spending every year.

Here's some tables I pulled from the study:

		Employees	Cost
Admin Employees		716,000
Desk soldiers		298,000
		1,014,000	$134 billion	23%
Front line soldiers		1,002,000	$446 billion	77%
Total		2,016,000	$580 billion

Here's the breakdown of the 1,014,000 people in military support services.

		Employees	Total cost	Avg Cost
Supply chain		457,000	52.1	114,004
Acquisition		207,000	37.5	181,159
Real estate		192,000	22.6	117,708
Human resources		84,000	11.4	135,714
Financial Flow		41,000	5.4	131,707
Health Care		30,000	4.1	136,667

Keep in mind that the $446 billion spent on front line soldiers also includes the cost and upkeep of all the military equipment and you can imagine just how bad this problem has become.  I'm sure it is something that isn't much of a secret to the actual fighting soldiers.  They get paid a relatively small amount and put their lives on the line while deskbound costs have soared to well over $100,000 per employee annually.

I'm sure quite a bit of this is due to the way the military is structured.  To advance in the military you have to work well with your superiors and that doesn't happen if you criticize how they've done things.  Keep in mind that most soldiers also don't spend much time in any post so it is easy to leave the bureaucracy for the next guy.  Add a Congress that wraps itself in the flag for votes, giving the military money even when they don't want it, and you get something that is impossible to control.

Of course the Pentagon hid the study and it's hard to blame them.  First, studies by outside consultants are always highly optimistic and in today's political environment this study would have been tossed around like a grenade, which each side cherry picking parts of the study to make political points.  The problem is there is a real issue and without visibility no one outside the military can fix it.

This isn't just a problem in the military.

Ratification of the US Constitution

The country's founders based the United States government on the concept of a separation of powers.
 The legislative branch in Congress makes the laws.  The executive branch in the President executes the laws.  The judicial branch in the Supreme Court checks the law for legality.

This system has worked for over 200 years but under the current scope and size of the United States this system is starting to show cracks.  Money, power, and atrophy has combined to create a bureaucratic morass that our current system cannot control.  Social media adds to this mix and unleashed a public anger at a government that no longer listens to them.  This has lead to things like President Trump but he can't fix the system.  No one person can do it.

What is the answer?  Is there an answer?

King George III

Our current situation reminds me of a comment King George III made after the Americans won their independence,

"I pray that the United States does not suffer unduly from its want of a monarchy."

This quote baffled me when I first read as the American colonists fought to rid itself of monarchy.  In time I realized his meaning that the United States government would benefit from an enlightened leader at the top with limited power.  Kings of England by George III's time had lost most of its power compared to the British Parliament who both made laws and elected the Prime Minister who was the executor of those laws.  The king's position (and in time, the House of Lords) was mostly one of oversight.  Over time the king of England became a symbol, the voice of the people and a check on the excesses of Parliament.

Queen Elizabeth II

I recently watched the television series called 'The Crown' which showed the first couple of years of Queen Elizabeth's reign.  I didn't know much about her before this show and never really gave it much thought.  It keys on the relationship between the wizened Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Elizabeth, an out of her depth young girl.  The Queen had little understanding of how the world worked when her father died and struggled at first with her ignorance compared to these older, much smarter men,

Near the end of the show, Elizabeth finds her footing, scolding senior government officials for keeping secrets from the English public and from her.  The sight of these great men trembling at the foot of a 25 year old girl was the highlight of the show for me.

Elizabeth understands that her role is as the conscious of the English people so their leaders keep the welfare of their people first in their hearts.  The Queen is supposed to be above partisan politics.  She only cares about the country and there is benefit in that.

The United States has nothing similar in its government.  Throughout US history it has relied primarily on the politician's love of country and the media to keep our government honest.  This doesn't seem to be working anymore.  Political confrontations like Watergate, the Bork confirmation hearings, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, budget impasses, and the lead up to the Iraq War have inflamed passions on all sides to the point that no one is able to put country ahead of party.  The country has no conscious anymore

The British Senate House in London,
the basis for Orwell's Ministry of  Truth
in his book, 1984

I've thought for a long time this country needed a 4th branch of government called the 'Ministry of Information'.  While it sounds Orwellian in title, my hope would be the reality to be somewhat limited in scope.  This 4th branch of government would be elected by the people with a 20 year appointment and focusing on leaders with a proven lifetime of service to the country.  This group would elect a new leader from its members each year,  The only caveat would be after election, members of this group could no longer engage in public politics of any form.  Doing so would lead to immediate dismissal.  Like the Queen, people in this organization need to be totally above politics.

The only goal of the 'Ministry of Information' would be to provide truthful information about the country.  Current organizations like the Congressional Budget Office would transfer to authority to them.  Government misstatements in the press would be called out.  A real look at the state of things like Social Security and Military spending would done.  Politicians would be held accountable to repeated false statements.  The organization would be part auditor and part newspaper.  When agreed on by other members, the president of this organization can meet with Congress and/or the President when they feel either aren't doing their job and go public when they refuse.

Of course there is the possibility that this organization could fracture leading to the same situation as current the Supreme Court but I'd hope we could find a couple dozen civic minded citizens to lead this group.  Ideally we'd never hear from them other than policy papers that would lead to marked improvements in how our government operates.  They would only go public in times of crisis like a lack of a Supreme Court vote over last summer or a rash of filibusters I'm sure we will see next spring over Trump's appointments.

The American government is based on effective lawmaking combined with a separation of power.  Party politics have narrowed the lines of power creating never ending gridlock that has no hope of addressing the needs of its people in the 21st century world.  Our current system is starting to show its age and we need to act soon before we prove King George's admonition correct.

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