I admit that I’ve never been one who believed that the government ought to be “run like a business.” A business’s primary objective is to turn a profit, which means charging as much as they can while minimizing expenses. If the customers are upset by, say, the lack of quality or by poor service, in theory, they can go elsewhere.
In contrast, the government should be there to serve the public good. It might mean doing things like basic research, which is rarely profitable (though one might note that the COVID vaccines were developed so quickly due to the “off the shelf” SARS research that had been done previously). It might mean providing services that are not always cost efficient or might prove to be not cost efficient.
Also, let’s look at safety net programs. If one is too tight on preventing abuse of the program, one might put in too many safeguards and either make it very difficult to use or make some needy people (through no fault of their own) ineligible.
Of course, that does NOT mean the government should be wantonly irresponsible or corrupt, and without safeguards, audits and checks, it is almost certain to be. Hence, I think that audits can be a good thing.
But audits should be carefully and competently done. That means: use experienced, credentialed forensic accountants and a mix of IT people: both the brilliant (but possibly inexperienced) and the experienced that understand the older IT systems and languages like COBOL.
So, we get to President Musk claiming that “150 year old people are getting Social Security benefits:”
This does not inspire confidence. And it makes me worry about scenarios like this one.
And then there is this: people coming in and making cuts should actually know something about the area. Here is an example where they didn’t: they fired people overseeing our nuclear weapons stockpile (yes, they rehired them).
And then, there is the issue of: “are they acting on good faith” (to make things better for the country, or for THEMSELVES?”
Life of an old goat 