Maggie's Farm

I think you need to find another standard by which to promote or judge efficiency. while services might be delivered more efficiently, governments aren't expected to show profits or prevent losses and there are such things as natural monopolies. saying "there is no built-in mechanism to end low-value activities" is pretty asinine. is Medicare supposed to show a profit? does the Army run in the black?

"low value" means exactly what you need it to mean, depending on what social program is currently tanning your hide.

yeah, I know, we're all True Blue natural American Patriots standing on our own true patriotic feet and would rather die than accept any profitless, lossy government assistance (e.g. police, fire, army, navy, skool districts, interstate highways, snowplows, tax incentives, WIC or the county dole). but let's face it, this stuff isn't going away ever.

"And agencies tend to describe their activities in opaque language with lots of buzz words". maybe for Chris Edwards, but each of us here has had a high-school education (or GED) so what the SEC or FCC or NLRB does isn't what any normal adult might call arcane knowledge.