That said we really want to take a chunk of the i]budget, go over it and see whether we could do ataq things more effectively whether we could do emphasize some priorities better. I dont think you could do the owhole budget. You certainly couldnt do it every other year. ut you could set up a mechanism the budget say every three years or five years to see if the money could be spent better and the priorities were what congress reallyco wanted them to be. Bob . Can i just ask you a quick question . So is what alice describes on the domestic side, is the military really any different . Isnt there a certain amount of the air force, the navy, the marines, everybody has to get their share of the cuts . Broadly, the budget shares havent changed a lot. Thats a fair statement. Within those shares theyve changed a lot. Let me try to respond. First off i think its way too harsh that suggest that ovq all only 1 of Government Spending has any effect. I will offer just a couple examples. One obvious
Bases as for jobs in so many congressional districts. And i have heard very conservative members of congress say government doesnt create jobs, it destroys them, and all that sort of thing. It doesnt apply to the military base in my district. If we lost that, we would lose jobs. Is there anyway around this . I dont know how, other than a fundamental change. I remember seeing many years ago, a map of where the subcontracts were, i think it was the b2 bomber. There was a pin the companies are smart enough to be sure that this happens, because they know the reality of it. I think to some extent Representative Democracy is inherently inefficient. That doesnt mean there arent things you carve out and ask government to do because they only do it. You probably do want to minimize them because its not going to be as efficient if you have a truly competitive industry. And yet we ought to at least acknowledge that the base Culture Commission turned out to be a very effective mechanism and we clo
You just wrote a book that says a lot of what the government does may not do any good and we spend i omitted the word may. Isnt there some point of having a Budget Constraint here which says to the congress, ok look, live within these things and lets spend more on the stuff that works and doesnt. Thats kind of the idea. Right. A, sent that a good idea . And b, why doesnt that ever happen . Why doesnt it ever happen . Why dont they set priorities and spend more on what they should and less on what they shouldnt . I think its just too hard. The government is gargantuan. Theres a book of Government Programs, if you dropped it on your toe, would you have to immediately go to the hospital. Thousands of pages. The government is just huge. How can you we cant even control the department of defense. We were in a meeting a couple months ago that had an important senior official and department of defense said they dont even know what the budget is. Is that correct . No, thats not right. Im talki
Administration, the president and the congress. So we do a number of things and i think its unfortunate that we suggest otherwise. In terms of accountabilrty, we absolutely know where were spending the money, down to a great deal of detail. You may not like the results that you see. Thats a fair point. And there are priorities set. I mean, i will give you a current example. We have backed much on Ground Forces over the last few years than we have any others. That was a painful decision, i can assure you, within the department of defense, but it was one consciously made based on a strategy that we felt in the aftermath of iraq and afghanistan we could afford smaller Ground Forces and still cutting but not as much the naval and air force. So i think alice is right, we can do better, but it is not as if we are just taking this money and sort of randomly spending it wherever we want and its not the case that theres no effect. Its easy if you mischaracterize someone. Thats not what im sayin