55 5.3 – EFFICIENCY
EFFICIENCY
Most Americans have heard or possibly uttered the phrase, “government should run more like a business.” The implicit assumption here is that, unlike government, businesses are efficient and competent. Unsurprisingly, because many policymakers value cost-effective, small government solutions, they focus much of their effort on efficiency as a policy goal. Efficiency is the act of “achieving an objective for the lowest cost” or gaining the most output for a given level of input, or even getting more of something for less (Birkland, 2019). Frequently, policymakers must determine how to use the scarce resources available to them so as to achieve the desired outcomes. Stone argues that rather than being a policy’s ultimate goal, efficiency is a means for helping policymakers attain more of the outcomes they value. If you think about it, we use efficiency to judge whether many of our daily activities are worth our time. Efficient people get a lot accomplished in a short period of time. Policymakers argue about efficiency when discussing a variety of public issues: military spending, health care, immigration, voting, and even foreign policy. Perhaps no policy is more controversial than government efforts to achieve efficiency through public school funding. Supporters argue that schools do not have the necessary resources to improve student performance, while opponents argue that increased funding does not equate to increased achievement. Specifically, opponents argue that increased funding will not lead to greater efficiency.
Getting the most for less money, time, or effort is an intuitive way to judge policy options because “everyone would like to attain something of value in the least costly way” (Stone, 2002). That is why government agencies initiate a bidding process before deciding which private company will provide government services. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) releases a yearly report that identifies waste and federal program duplication. A recent report found, for example, that the Department of Energy could avoid spending billions on radioactive waste cleanup by developing a strategy to improve hazardous waste cleanup (GAO, 2019).
Americans commonly think of government expenses as wasteful or fraudulent, taking resources away from more worthy causes or taxpayers in general. In fact, the argument against inefficiency is so rewarding that policymakers who disagree with the substance of a policy will find its argument about limited resources and waste to be the most successful. While inefficiencies do occur in government, the decision to either support or oppose a policy based on efficiency is more often political than economic. Take, for instance, the economic arguments against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) when first debated in Congress. Opponents disagreed with the substance of the policy but found the arguments against the policy cost or the likelihood of fraud were more compelling (Fahmy, 2013).
