So what’s the goal? My experience in the private sector was that we (senior management) would set a reduction goal and then give the operating groups 1 month to come back with a plan on how they would achieve it. Further reductions were smiled upon.
“So what’s the goal? My experience in the private sector was that we (senior management) would set a reduction goal and then give the operating groups 1 month to come back with a plan on how they would achieve it. Further reductions were smiled upon.”
In this case, this isn’t anything like a private business because most private businesses are already running fairly efficiently and they don’t have multiple group with the same internal functions. That said, I think the opportunities here far outstrip what you could do with a downsizing in the private sector. It really comes down to just how big Trump’s balls are!
My experience in the private sector was that departments would be given a budget target and told to suck it up. But I do think/hope his budget will be accomplishing that. Because if you just send people away to find things to cut, they won't find very much.
Sadly, the government doesn’t work like that. I’m not defending or anything like that because there’s plenty that can be cut.
However, there are a lot of things that are done because of a law or regulation or court case or Congressional desire or whatever. So you need to noodle through that. Plus there are a number of things that must be done which can get lumped with “stuff we want to do” so that it looks like it all has to be done. Plus a lot of agencies take on stuff that maybe they didn’t have to do but now those things have a constituency (including Congress) that will raise heck if it’s stopped.
Read what the Department of Energy does now, as opposed to what the Atomic Energy Commission was initially chartered to do. You’ll be amazed. And that’s one example.
Again, I’m not defending, but the bureaucracy is so entangled in so many things you have to pull all the threads before you can start cutting them.
I’m sure it will get done though.