In the continuing search for a happy medium between the demands of other projects–business, writing a novel and cleaning up after hurricanes–I have decided to move to a weekly post of random thoughts.
Today, I begin with two topics which were overshadowed by concern for the residents of SE Texas, the lower Atlantic coast and the Caribbean islands. They are both related to the worn out mantra, “We need to run government like a business.” It assumes businesses are all the same. What if we ran government like a bait and switch scam? Well, we are currently putting that to the test and how is that going? Instead, what if we looked at specific business practices which might be adapted because they make the same sense in the public sector as they do for private enterprises.
Spousal Travel
I used to work for a major public interest group in Washington, D.C. which required almost weekly travel to meet with our clients. I was allowed to take my wife on these trips under the following conditions.
- I paid for her airfare.
- Any expense which represented a cost above the travel reimbursement to which I was normally entitled came out of my own pocket.
For example, if there was no price differential between one or two people staying in the same hotel room, that was okay. But if there was an additional charge for the second person in a cab or shuttle, that was my responsibility. Of course, her meals and entertainment could not be charged back to the organization.
Now consider the recent efforts of Secretary of Creative Accounting Steven Mnuchin to bilk American taxpayers for his honeymoon and his optimal viewing of last month’s solar eclipse. In both cases the use of a private government plane (at a cost of $25,000/hr) was dubious. In the case of his European honeymoon there was no official business associated with this travel. His excuse? As a member of the National Security Council (NSC) he needed to have encrypted access to the White House in case of an emergency.
But here’s the rub. There are five categories of members/participants on the NSC in order of importance.
- Chairman (aka President)
- Statutory Attendees
- Military, Intelligence and Drug Policy Advisers
- Regular Attendees
- Additional Participants
Care to guess into which category the Treasury Secretary falls? If you chose #5, give yourself a prize.
As for the trip to Ft. Knox, Kentucky, there was no scheduled event which required Mr. Mnuchin’s presence. And he later claimed he had no interest at all in the solar eclipse. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Mnuchin said, “You know, people in Kentucky took this stuff very serious. Being a New Yorker and [living for a time in] California, I was like, the eclipse? Really? I don’t have any interest in watching the eclipse.” So much for Republican claims it’s the Democrats who are coastal elites.
The solution. Follow the same rules as my former DC employer. Public officials (elected and administrative) should be required to reimburse the federal government for family members’ or friends’ airfare when using government transportation. Use the standard already contained in Federal Elections Commission regulations. If a candidate is offered space on a private or corporate plane, the campaign must reimburse the host individual or company the equivalent of an average first class airfare for a similar flight. And unless the spouse is on official public business (one can imagine both Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife Transportation Secretary Elaine Choi having a role at an international event), all discretionary costs associated with companion travel should not be covered with government funds.
A Specific Business Approach Toward North Korea
I have a friend who for 20 plus years owned the third largest contractor in a business sector which is historically known for safety issues. Workers compensation and liability insurance are major cost centers in this industry. Most of the accidents are due to human error. In other words, it was the employee’s fault. Therefore, the traditional approach to work safety was to punish an employee if he/she violated safety regulations or procedures. But as my friend soon learned that only ended up costing him more. A disciplined employee was more likely to quit than change behavior, adding the expense of hiring and training new workers.
Instead, my friend chose a counter-intuitive approach and began offering bonuses to workers based on the number of days they went without a safety violation or incident. Within months of implementing the policy, the number of safety incidents decreased significantly leading to reduced insurance premiums. Employees now had a financial stake in the company’s safety program.
Which brings us to North Korea. For some reason, sticky issues always come back to Sam Kinison’s controversial declaration, “I don’t condone wife-beating, but I understand it.” That’s exactly how I feel about North Korea. I don’t condone nuclear proliferation, but in this case, I understand it. Put yourself in Kim Jong-un’s shoes. You watched the United States invade the sovereign nation of Iraq and overthrow its government. What would keep the USA from doing the same thing in North Korea? The obvious answer is nuclear deterrence. History suggests it works. Nuclear capability kept the cold war from heating up. It maintains a relative state of peace between India and Pakistan. And it remains Israel’s wild card as a weapon of last resort in the event of a second potential holocaust.
Following my friend’s entrepreneurial approach to workplace safety, one might say, “The stick doesn’t seem to be working; maybe we should offer a carrot.” Instead of backing Pyongyang into a corner, we should ask what could we do that gives Kim Jong-un a stake in defusing an escalation of more and more destructive weapons. Didn’t John Kennedy do exactly that during the Cuban missile crisis in October, 1962? Like Kim Jong-un, Fidel Castro was convinced the United State wanted regime change in Cuba. A reasonable supposition following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. As part of the deal which resulted in the removal of Soviet offensive weapons from Cuba, Kennedy promised not to initiate or support any future attempts to overthrow Castro.
Instead of giving Kim Jong-un more reasons to expand his nuclear capabilities, maybe it’s time we give him a reason to start believing he doesn’t need them.
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP
The second example is the reason we chose Winnipeg as a destination for this vacation. The city is currently hosting Folklorama, a two week international festival with cultural pavilions representing more than 40 nations. Last night we attended an event at the Cuban Pavilion for which all the performers were life-long Canadian residents who found outlets in Winnipeg and Edmonton to learn and perform their native music and dance. The same was true of the “ambassadors” from several other national exhibits. Whether Serbian or Polish, the answer to the question, “How long have you been in Canada,” the answer was always, “My whole life.”