FatCratz

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FatCratz needs your help. We want to start a conversation about what works in government, and what doesn't. We want to have fun talking about what's wrong, and think about how we can make it better.

FatCratz also wants to shine the light on those who abuse the public trust... not all poor behavior is criminal, nor does it merit investigation by agency authorities. But flagrant abusers of the system should be revealed, even if just in general terms. Shame is a powerful incentive toward good performance.

Details which incriminate specific parties will be edited out of all posts.

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How Do Your Reward Performance Without Compensation?

Various government entities have been exploring pay-for-performance systems that would seek to augment incentives for government employee performance. The jury is still out on whether these would create better incentives than the current system... which tends to boost compensation based on time served. However, unions and some in congress want to nip these efforts in the bud before they get established. You have to give them chutzpah points for the following locution:

A well-designed performance management system can recognize and reward high performance without a linkage to compensation.

Rewards without compensation. Hmm... Are they thinking of handing out gold stars?

Two Very Different Responses to FatCratz (2 of 2)

And, here's a completely different response to FatCratz (my responses interspersed):

In the world of technology and bioscience, we accept few limits. Entrepreneurs achieve the unimaginable daily.

FatCratz hopes to develop the contrast between the public and private sector, particularly illustrating how the entrepreneurial and risk-taking spirit endemic to American innovation is almost entirely snuffed out in the government workplace.

However, when it comes to government, which only anarchists believe we can do without, we throw up our hands and say improvement is impossible. Government will always be slow, unable to innovate, and an inefficient drag on the economy (and perhaps our personal liberties).

FatCratz is not anarchist, or anti-government. We believe that government's competencies are limited. And we believe that government is not necessary in many areas of our society where its presence today is assumed. In short, government is far more expansive than it needs to be, and very much of its activity is extended well beyond its area of necessity.

While I have spent 15 years as a government employee, often being slapped down for pushing the envelope, I still believe we can do better by tapping the same entrepreneurial spirit that makes Moore's law work, that allows Dean Kamen to build a robotic arm for our vets that works on neural stimulation, that makes the $1,000 genome a future possibility, and let's admit it, put a man on the moon and brought him safely to earth before the end of the decade (60s).

Let's devise an X Prize for improving government.

I'm a realist, but I share a bit of this optimism. We can do government better, but only if enough people insist we stopping doing it like we're doing it now. That's a goal of FatCratz, to reveal the bad to more people to shift our current complacency a bit.

The moon shot is an excellent example of government working to achieve a big goal. Unfortunately, NASA today is also an excellent example of how government programs outlive their useful lifespan and become increasingly wasteful as they lose the focus of their original mission.

FatCratz will now begin accepting suggestions for the X Prize for improving government.

Thanks for the feedback on the site.

Two Very Different Responses to FatCratz (1 of 2)

Here's one spirited response I received to the FatCratz discussion (my comments are interspersed):

My last visit to the DMV was online, took 3 minutes start to finish, and was incredibly convenient and efficient, yet the media are unable to learn that the cliche is no longer true.

I'm thrilled government is finally adopting online technology. But in my experience, government has been very slow to this game, and often lags current e-commerce technology by 5 - 10 years. And I wonder if migrating customers to the web has allowed them to reduce staff? My most recent experience was an online purchase of an EZPass, and I was only told on the final step of a lengthy process that the system was down. Of course, I'll be back, because they have a monopoly.

Taking swipes at bureaucrats is low-hanging fruit for the lazy journalist, but it is the stereotype that offer no insight as to why inefficiencies exist - much less how to correct them. If your website does that it may have some use.

FatCratz doesn't want to perpetuate a false stereotype, but shine a light on the concrete reality, and in doing so diagnose the problem and propose solutions.  

Confidence in Government

We launched FatCratz in part because we believed that confidence in government was at an all-time high. With more and more of our dollars and daily choices being put in the hands of government, FatCratz feels that this confidence could stand to be knocked down a notch or two.

A few readers doubt this premise, siting rock-bottom congressional approval ratings and public displeasure over recent rescues and deployment of TARP funds.

So, which is it?

$3,550,000,000,000

That's the current budget number under consideration for next year's spending. This is a low-ball figure, as it excludes various expenditures that aren't represented in the annual appropriations process.

That's $9.7 billion per day.

That's a big number, and it's tough to find real world equivalencies that capture it. How about, the domestic movie industry, which in 2008 brought in a box office total of $9.8 billion.

So in a single day of operation our government spends the equivalent of what every man, woman, and child spent all year long at movie theaters.

More End-of-Budget-Year Follies

Remember, budgeted dollars in a government office are typically "use it or lose it." If you have money left at the end of the year, you have to spend it. Ergo:

I was working at XYZ when the end of the budget year rolled around. My computer had already been upgraded to a flat panel screen, but two additional ones were delivered to my work station. They were stored under my desk, and never used, at least not while I was there. I finally figured out this was because they had extra money to spend at the end of the year.

Imagine if you ran your household budget like this. After topping up at the gas station, you'd have to hose a few extra gallons of gas on the sidewalk. And then you'd go to the grocery store and buy a few extra gallons of milk, even if they wouldn't fit in your fridge. And then you'd buy a few extra pair of shoes, just to keep under your bed.

Because there is no mechanism to save, ever, the incentives are the exact opposite of real life. The less you spend, the less you get to spend in the future. The more you spend, the more you're given to spend in the future.

And we wonder why government spending is out of control.

It's Tax Time--We All Work for the Government

OK, the rule of thumb here is that our contributions come from government employees, that is, those lucky few [2.7 million or so] behind the curtain who see how the sausage is made.

But in honor of Unholy Week--the week before tax day--FatCratz declares that we are all working for the government. At least, you were working for Uncle Sam until April 13th, so-called "Tax Freedom Day," calculated by determining what percentage of your paycheck goes to the government, and mapping it on the calendar. So April 14th you start keeping what you earn, just in time to file.

Enough fun with numbers. For most of my readers, this is the most interaction you'll have with the government all year, and as honorary government employees, I'll be welcoming your submissions. So whether you're a part of our biggest fan base in tax-heavy California, or our devoted expat followers in Altenberge, Germany, let us know how tax filing is going this year.

Is the IRS more efficient at collecting taxes than its boss is at paying them? Do tell.

FatCratz Is Still Learning How Its Post Titles Appear on Twitter

The previous two post titles didn't translate well into Twitter.

Just to clarify, the two following titles do not, I repeat, do not, answer the question "What are you doing?"

"I am trying to learn how to use cam2cam capability on asianbabes.com"

and

How Often Do You Have To View Porn at Work to Get Fired?

How Often Do You Have To View Porn at Work to Get Fired?

Apparently, 8 isn't enough, but 200 times a day is:

Nine D.C. government employees are being fired for viewing pornography on their work computers, including three who looked at inappropriate sexual images an average of about 200 times per work day in 2007, city officials said yesterday.

Each of the nine employees clicked on porn sites more than 19,000 times last year, according to the results of an internal investigation of 10,000 government computers, officials said. Three visited such sites more than 39,000 times apiece last year, the investigation found.

Thirty-two other employees who visited porn sites more than 2,000 times will receive letters of reprimand or suspensions.

Maybe someone in the DC government could help the folks at NSF out.