I’m rather troubled to read about Governor Hochul’s interest in government efficiency. While the article in today’s Times Union notes that the Governor’s office has gone to some lengths to try and contrast her proposed program to the President’s destructive (and illegal) efforts, she’s hardly earned much public trust on this front. It’s only been a few years since she somehow found $600 million to fund a new stadium for New York’s only NFL team—hardly something you’d suggest if you were interested in avoiding the waste of citizens’ money.
I’m also always cautious any time someone says something that attempts to frame government as a business. There’s often public good in assuming some cost that wouldn’t make sense for a business. Having skilled engineers, architects, and scientists on the public payroll for example will often improve the level of scholarship, leading to gains many years down the road. While those gains wouldn’t be something that could be realized by a business, they will acrue to the public and are a very appropriate way for the government to invest public money. Public health is aslo a great example of a way government can invest in the community that wouldn’t make sense for a business. Public education is yet another example.
We shouldn’t shy away from having a large government workforce, especially if those civil servants are highly skilled and work hard for the public good.
That being said, there are numerous ways in which New York’s bureaucracy doesn’t really seem to be working for New Yorkers. The question that coverage of the issue, and political discussion about it, seems to be avoiding is whether it’s really the bureaucracy that’s to blame. So many of New York’s laws seem more focused on protecting certain businesses or industries (why can’t we buy wine in a grocery store?) rather than improving the quality of life or the resiliency of our communities. And of course, having a large government workforce isn’t an inherent good, any more than it’s an inherent bad. Sometimes, reducing a particular element of the state workforce is a good thing (like closing prisons as we reduce the number of our fellow citizens we incarcerate—something we ought to be actively trying to do.)
If the governor really wants to reduce the cost of living here, or streamline New York government, maybe looking at what the government does would be a better place to start than a quest for “efficiency” in how it does it.