As the old saying goes: Check it to wreck it.
Very often, the Strawman Blogger is treated to lengthy speeches about how easy it would be to bring our budget under control, if only we could cut out all of that nasty government waste.
And well we should! The Strawman Blogger is no fan of waste. But when we think about shrinking the government down to size, we like to think of the Parable of The Flatscreen.
The Parable of The Flatscreen
Once, a friend of the SMB was serving in the military. And yeah, it came to pass that his unit commander was sad. He was under budget for the year. And he was filled with great foreboding, for coming in under budget is an invitation to have your budget cut.
And there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth! But then the unit commander alighted on an idea. Why not spend that money on a new TV for the break room? For all men need breaks, lest they decide that careerism is not all it's cracked up to be, and seeks well-remunerated jobs in the private security sector. The bastards.
And yeah, he did, and he became happy, and the men became happy. But some among them were full of wroth, for they understood that this was Manifest Government Waste.
The Lesson
When we hear stories like this, we like perform the following thought-exercise:
Cost of flatscreen TV: $3,000.
Men in unit: 50.
Average Salary: $35,000.
Total unit salary: $1,750,000.
Waste as percentage of salary costs: 0.17%.
Of course, none of these numbers are real (The story is, unfortunately. We've heard it fifteen bloody times). But it's a useful trick.
We hate waste because it's visible, and visible things make us angry. But lurking in the background is an ocean of government spending that doesn't bothered us at all. Hell. Who doesn't like paying soldiers?
Outside of this narrow parallel, it's best to remember that isolated, even shocking, incidents of waste are likely to a very small component of a larger system.
