There’s been a lot of talk about “efficiency” from the current administration, but to quote a character from The Princess Bride: “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
Cutting and shutting down government programs is not efficiency. That is a bit like removing the furnace and hot water heater from your house and saying that you’ve made it more efficient – sure, your house is using less energy, but you have no heat or hot water. It’s a bit like saying you’re going to be more efficient with your money by just not spending any of it. That’s not efficient… that’s just stupid.
“Efficiency” means doing the same while using less, not doing less and then just transferring that usage somewhere else. If the goal was really “efficiency,” then we wouldn’t be shutting down agencies or programs, we’d perhaps be looking for ways to combine them and reduce redundancy, or perhaps to even find ways to do more and reap the benefits of economies of scale.
A house without a furnace or water heater might use less energy, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
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