A fundamental Progressive talking point is that government cannot be run like a business. To the extent that the ultimate goal of a business is to achieve profits for its owners I agree.
But the path to a profitable business lies in an efficient and effective execution of the business’ functions. In order to meet the expectations of trusting citizens, just such good business practices at the lowest possible cost must apply to the delivery of government services.
Such Progressive philosophy, whether applied consciously or not, lives a lie and the consequences abound.
These consequences are defined by non-strategic spending and poor or negative outcomes. The connection is clear between the failure to run cities in a businesslike manner and the evils of drug abuse, broken families, crime, poverty, poor economic opportunities, crumbling infrastructure, bad education, and on and on. Run a city efficiently and effectively and these social ills diminish; run a city Progressively and expect nothing less.
The election of Donald Trump, and the discrediting of Democratic blocking tactics such as “lawfare,” have opened the way to cleaning the arteries of the national body politic, decades of government waste and abuse, abandonment of efficiency and efficacy as operating principles. In order to overcome decades of bad practice the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), when successful, will place the needs of the people and not of government at the forefront, as citizens of all social strata benefit.
In our city, where the success of its major economic event, Mardi Gras, is measured in tons of garbage, not in the prosperity and safety of its citizens, we have come to expect poor outcomes. After decades of declining growth and social ills driven by leadership mired in Progressive practices, New Orleans desperately needs its own DOGE.
Perhaps the most iconic government service in New Orleans is the Sewage and Water Board. Fifty years ago, this agency was literally held up internationally as the model of engineering accomplishment and best government practices. Yet today, after years of political mismanagement, it is better known for crumbling infrastructure, flooding, and inept services.
There is a joke about the Sewage and Water Board, a joke perhaps not very funny, but based on what our people see. The joke goes, ‘When one sees a crew of ten workers, one will be digging and nine standing around watching.”
In my last year in the Senate, I asked Board members what I could do to change things for the better. The common answer was, get the Sewage and Water Board out of Civil Service. In those private conversations they let me know that the Civil Service, a once valuable protection against political power, had become the main impediment to good management of Sewage and Water Board operations. I supposed this to be their way of validating the 10-worker joke.
In good faith I filed a bill to do that.
As I expected, irate employees bombarded me, after all who wants to lose the guarantee of virtually no challenge to lifetime employment. Then, to my chagrin, Board members and management decided to hide in the shadows by refusing to help me. As the final straw, prominent New Orleans business leaders, the very people that should be expected to demand reform, let me know that they would not support me because in their words they wanted to “play nice” with the city.
The bill failed, and today the 10-worker joke prevails. SWB can’t even reliably produce accurate water bills for its customers anymore.
My experience was just an example of a city in which political and business leaders are more concerned with political comfort than doing what is necessary to create a thriving environment for citizens. There is not a lingering memory of when just a few decades past New Orleans was known as the Queen City of the South, a time when growth marked its peaked population and prosperity. An unawareness of such recent history deprives citizens of a fundamental faith in the potential of the city, so they just surrender to what they perceive as the inevitable, without reform, when the Federal spending of the last four years dries up who knows where we are headed. Clearly no one in the political hierarchy speaks to growth and prosperity as goals, depending on reciting the Progressive taking points of fear and jealousy to build support.
The City of New Orleans is a political subdivision of the state, by our constitution its people are citizens of the state first and the city second. As its economy has stagnated, the city has become more and more a beneficiary of growing state largesse. If city leaders continue to refuse to move toward efficiency and efficacy, then the state owes it to citizens to undertake its own version of DOGE for the city. Afterall, when part of the state fails to live up to its potential, all of the state suffers.
When it does, the political class will hate it. They will imply anti-democracy and racism.
But this may be the only way to save the city from itself.
The NGOs and the community organizers will hate it because their gravy train will end. Non-productive employees will hate it because they will have to work like private sector employees. Fat cat, crony-capitalists will hate it because their meal ticket will not be punched.
And who will love it? Taxpayers and citizens who expect nothing more than competent government.
Just imagine a time when the Sewage and Water Board, the Parks and Parkway Commission, and the New Orleans Police Department are once again honored nationally as prime examples of quality government services! Just imagine when opportunity to improve the well being of all citizens is the standard for all practices.
Of course, the city’s leaders could undertake a DOGE-like process themselves. A plan emanating from the city to refocus resources and efforts upon efficiency and effectiveness is a far better solution than a state undertaking. But the odds against that are as long as anyone expecting to see ten guys digging and none lounging.