The “Porkbuster” movement has been gaining momentum, largely due to the impetus imparted by Glenn Reynolds and N.Z. Bear. More power to them—but I hope they’ll give me a pass as I respectfully decline my seat on the bandwagon. I fear it is being oversimplified; in the recent past, that has led to unpleasant consequences.
I’ll grant that some spending is both pork and waste. But it’s also true that not all pork is waste, and that not all waste is pork. Lastly, and most importantly, a substantial portion of federal spending is neither pork nor waste.
To disentangle the above paragraph, here's a headpicture that helps me keep it sorted out. [Definition: “headpicture” = “brain dump”]
My problem with jumping onto the Porkbuster bandwagon too hastily is that those important delineations can get lost. The Clinton years provide us with a good example. Back in the early ‘90s, “smaller government” is what we said we wanted—and that’s what our government gave us. It turned out to be a mistake, and it was our own fault.
In 1992, we spent 29.8% of tax receipts on national security. The Clinton administration—having listened to our complaints about government spending—felt our pain. With bipartisan support in Congress, national security spending dropped to 16.5% of tax receipts in 2000. Voila! Smaller government, just what we’d asked for! Surpluses galore! Yippee!
[But wait, you ask, wasn’t it just waste and pork that the 1990s deficit-busters cut from the national security budget? Well, the best answer to that comes from a 1983 Hill Street Blues episode, when the narcoleptic comedian-defendant, played by Terry Kiser, respectfully answered a question by the judge thusly: “Dream on, your honor.”]
My point is this: Had we kept national security spending at an even-keel 4½% GDP during the ‘90s instead of cutting it to 2.9% GDP, and had we spent it effectively to better handle asymmetric threats, guess what might not have happened in 2001? Hints: Our economy took a $1 trillion hit because of it; a war started because of it; we’re still running deep deficits because of it. Bottom line: Preventing that event would have been a good investment, don’t you agree?
But we didn’t make that national security investment, partly because we were stricken with surplus mania. We collectively forgot what every private sector entrepreneur and banker knows: borrowing a prudent amount of money for good investments is sound financial practice. When our kids and grandkids write the history books, I sure hope they can find a way to forgive us for our phenomenal 1990s fiscal blunder, surplus-mania. What a colossal, tragic mistake that was.
Fast forward to mid-2000s Porkbusting. It’s easy to say “cut the fat.” It’s easy to infer that all pork is fat. It’s easy to make lists, and to tally the fat dollars. It’s easy to compose sentences that start with the words “They should”. It’s more difficult to take a deep breath and think about things just a little harder—but once we do, we see that one possible alternative to “Smaller Government” is “Better Government.”
Here’s a comparison of two alternatives for changing our spending habits. Note that the first focuses on the money, the second on what we get for the money.
When we “cut” the budget (as a % of GDP) without changing the processes, incentives, and controls in budget making and money spending, the guaranteed result will be “less of the same.” Alternatively, if we effectively reform the government’s processes, measures, controls, and accountabilities, we’ll get better results from the same level of spending. (And if we can grow the economy faster than deficits cause the debt to grow, our financial health improves—in spite of the deficits—as you already know if you’ve been watching the National Debt Thermometer at this website.)
Don’t know about you, but I’d rather have more effective intelligence, diplomacy, and military force potential, as well as more equal justice and better infrastructure, for the same level of spending. In other words, I prefer alternative 2, Better Government. I’m not nearly as concerned about the money as I am about what we get for the money.
A few voices out there are asking us to think a little harder. Investor's Business Daily talks of the need for better controls in their "cut the pork" article, for example. Another voice is the father of management, Peter Drucker, who admonishes us not to be one-dimensional in our analyses:
I insist that in all political and social decisions the economic costs are calculated and taken into account. To talk only of "benefits" I consider irresponsible and bound to lead to disaster. –Peter Drucker
I wish we had paid more attention to that advice back in the 1990s; it might have caused us to reflect a bit more before accepting an oversimplified case for surpluses. I wish we’d pay more attention to it today; it might cause us to reflect a bit more before accepting an oversimplified pitch for Porkbusting.
Again: I'm not against porkbusting per se; I'm against oversimplified, one-dimensional thinking. As Einstein said:
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
