measuring business efficiency by Politicians

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Just curious.
Retiring Sen Coburn released an analysis of the DHS. To no one’s surprise (why release it otherwise?) the analysis showed DHS to be failures at everything they do. Just like analyses of NASA or many DoD programs. Again, no surprises there.

My question is: if any large business was subject to the same level of analysis as a Gov’t agency, how would they do?

How well would the company you know best (obviously, no names please!) do if the GAO came calling-and the company was crazy enough to answer? As well as DHS or NASA? Better? or worse?

Of course the market forces companies to tend toward efficiency, but so does the simple desire to do a good job. Neither is an all-powerful force…

2

I think this is a good way to put it. I currently work for a very large company in the IT services industry. It is top-heavy, bureaucratic, slow-moving, and generally run like crap. Yet we continue to make money.

I’ve never worked for a government agency, but I’ve worked for non-profits, for-profits, and educational institutions. In my experience, the vaunted efficiency of Corporate America is a comforting myth guys in suits like to tell each other.