FatCratz is officially non-partisan. This claim requires some defending.
In Washington, the issue of government fraud, waste, and abuse is all too often used as a partisan cudgel. If inefficiency is endemic to government bureaucracy, then it is always available as a handy weapon to use against the party in power. To a certain degree, this is good thing, as both the separation of powers and the two-party system are supposed to serve as checks and balances to monolithic government power. The power to investigate is one of the legislative branches greatest weapons in battling the abuse of the executive.
An unfortunate side effect is that government inefficiency can often seem as merely a partisan, political issue, and this is used as a pretext for dismissing its importance. In our current political environment, this has been exacerbated by where political lines fall on a range of issues:
- Republicans claim to be in favor of a smaller government apparatus. Government waste is often used as an argument to bolster that policy.
- Democrats claim great support of labor unions, and are in fact typically more heavily supported by labor unions financially and electorally. Given the overwhelming unionization of the federal workforce, Democrats typically favor the civil service and union protections that strengthen their hand in negotiations.
- Studies have shown that public employees tend to be more left-leaning in their political ideology. I'd argue that first-hand experience in the capitol region supports this conclusion.
Yet FatCratz refuses to grant that improving government efficiency and curbing the worst abuses should be the policy goal of one party over another. From the standpoint of the public employee unions, their hand would be strengthened if they policed their own and weeded out those bad apples that abuse necessary protections. Whether you believe government or the private-sector solutions are more effective to our society's ills, or whether you believe government should be smaller or bigger, you should desire that when government acts, it should act as efficiently as possible. And those in favor of government action should work for maximum efficiency, as evidence to prove their point and support for greater growth of government.
For all these reasons, FatCratz is officially non-partisan, and so far as possible, seeks to remain ideologically neutral about particular policy outcomes. Our goal is greater awareness of government inefficiency resulting from fraud, waste, abuse, and bureaucracy, with the aim that sunlight on these problems will both increase efficiency AND bring public confidence in government more in line with actual performance.
So, if you are a Republican or a Democrat, send us your stories. Let all America know what it's like to work in government, so we can make working in government a more productive enterprise.
