Federal IT Will Survive the Budget Deal 104
jfruhlinger writes "Like most people in America — and like most government workers in particular — federal IT staffers are wondering how the recent budget deal will affect them. It seems they won't suffer much, for two reasons: there was already a major tech consolidation effort underway, and everyone involved is hoping IT initiatives will result in cost-savings in other areas of government operations. In particular, federal moves to the cloud — which can yield considerable savings, despite a need for up-front investment that deters some shops — will continue."
I;ll clue you in: (Score:3, Insightful)
Government workers are always under pressure to cut costs, and do more.
If you look at the actual numbers* and compare them to any corporation of equal size as the specific government group,. there is substantial less waste in government then corporations.
Oh, be people just point and say 'government waste' and everyone nods there head like a bunch of brainwash Scientologist at a 'retreat'.
Ask for evidence, data, comparisons and they got nothing except for the rare cherry picked item. Most, as in over 98 percent, of government work is at or slightly below the initial requirements.
Corporation can only dream to get the kinds of numbers most government agency get.
*you wont, but I can hope
Re:Here's a better question to answer: (Score:3, Insightful)
What didn't survive the 'budget deal'?
Any meaningful deficit reduction.
No offense, but citations please? (Score:3, Insightful)
You boast some impressive numbers and they disclaim any opposing views as being cherry picked yet you do not provide any citations to back your claims.
Your talking about an organization (the US government) which is consuming nearly 25% of the GDP of the richest country on Earth that cannot balance its books. Yet you claim that it is efficient beyond the hopes of any corporation? It does not take much work to come up with your "cherry picked" counter points, government projects are notorious for over spending, F35 and Big Dig are two great examples of recent boondoggles. There over 1.6 million civilian federal employees, the average cost of each is just slightly over 100k.
So ya, most workers I know in private industry are also under pressure to get it in under budget and cut costs where possible. I haven't heard of a private business who wants their employees to not cut costs...
Regardless, no real cost savings are going to come from paring down the number of employees the Federal Government has. We have to knock down whole agencies and we have to tackle the real problem : Entitlements. They eat nearly two trillion dollars a year and when Obama Care rolls in around 2013 it will only get worse.
We are spending too much and there really isn't sufficient revenue to be gained through taxation. Historically we take in between 18 and 20% of the GDP with the spending close to that, yet now we are at less than 19% because of the weak economy and nearly 25% out because of reckless spending (keynesian fixes that don't work). We peaked at near 21% GDP for taxes during boom years (internet boom) yet even Clinton did not produce a balanced budget - go look it up, not one year did the deficit not increase.
So, citations if you make bold claims about government efficiency. Its hard to find favorable stories even in left leaning print (NYTimes and such) so I would love to see it.
Re:I;ll clue you in: (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll share evidence explained directly to me by the person who was involved.
A friend of mine in the Navy was sent to shore duty to work with shipyard employees. This is a fairly common duty for people in the program I worked in.
The small division he was working for was all civilians and tasked with rebuilding and repairing complex mechanical equipment on ships and subs. His group was tasked with the replacement of a large valve on a critical ship's system. He took the usual squid work mentality and worked long hours to complete the job in less than 3 days, sleeping on the ship one of the days to get the work done. When he reported to his supervisor that the work was complete, the supervisor was livid.
The supervisor explained to my friend that this valve replacement was expected to take 5 people 3 weeks to complete, with the final week being 12 hour days with overtime pay. This supervisor was so angry that he told my friend never to work on another project for this division again. So my friend stopped going into work altogether. Since he was not assigned to a military base, nobody kept track of what he did or where he was. For the next two years he spent all of his time SCUBA diving and hang-gliding while making a nice salary and receiving full benefits.
I have yet to see in a corporate world not only with this amount of waste (500 man-hours billed to do 45 man-hours labor) as standard policy, but also someone making a nice salary that nobody tracks any of their productivity or even knows where the employee is.