Waste? Really?
Jan. 31st, 2008 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoReading over James Fallows' blow-by-blow of Bush's State of the Union address in The Atlantic, the following struck me as noteworthy:
"Just as we trust Americans with their own money, we need to earn their trust by spending their tax dollars wisely. Next week, I'll send you a budget that terminates or substantially reduces 151 wasteful or bloated programs, totaling more than $18 billion. The budget that I will submit will keep America on track for a surplus in 2012. American families have to balance their budgets; so should their government."
$18 billion? Really? Boy, that sounds like an impressive amount of money.
...until you realize the US Federal Budget is $2.8 trillion dollars. And our Gross Domestic Product is over $13 trillion.
That means that by Bush's own estimate, less than 0.4% of the federal budget is "wasteful or bloated."
The takeaway for business?
What business do you know of that runs at 99.6% efficiency?
"Just as we trust Americans with their own money, we need to earn their trust by spending their tax dollars wisely. Next week, I'll send you a budget that terminates or substantially reduces 151 wasteful or bloated programs, totaling more than $18 billion. The budget that I will submit will keep America on track for a surplus in 2012. American families have to balance their budgets; so should their government."
$18 billion? Really? Boy, that sounds like an impressive amount of money.
...until you realize the US Federal Budget is $2.8 trillion dollars. And our Gross Domestic Product is over $13 trillion.
That means that by Bush's own estimate, less than 0.4% of the federal budget is "wasteful or bloated."
The takeaway for business?
What business do you know of that runs at 99.6% efficiency?
