If there is one thing in the American political picture today that is as obvious as a diamond on a manure pile, it’s the fact that the federal government is out of control. It has grown far beyond its original, constitutionally mandated boundaries into an imperial colossus, dominating the land, sucking away the taxpayers’ wealth, running up literal mountains of debt, and intruding into almost every aspect of our daily lives.
Former President (and current GOP presidential candidate) Donald Trump is making noises about doing something to make government, if not smaller, at least more efficient, and he has some interesting ideas as to who to put in charge of cleaning out those Augean Stables – Elon Musk.
Former President Trump said Thursday that he endorsed billionaire Elon Musk’s plan for a government efficiency commission and would appoint the entrepreneur to lead the panel if the Republican nominee wins the presidential election.
In a speech on Thursday at the Economic Club of New York, Trump publicly expressed support for the idea for the first time and said that Musk had agreed to head the commission. He also offered a general overview of what he would expect the task force to do.
The government efficiency commission would conduct a financial and performance audit of the federal government and would look to track down fraud and improper payments made from government programs. It would then provide recommendations for “drastic reforms” aimed at promoting efficiency, he explained, with the goal of eliminating fraud and improper payments within six months of the commission being formed.
It’s an interesting idea – granted, we have seen commissions and task forces formed endlessly and ad nauseum and not much has happened. Still, there is one key difference this time; as my friend and colleague Brandon Morse wrote the other day, picking one of America’s leading entrepreneurs to head up this group is something that hasn’t really been tried before.
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But it isn’t just the inclusion of Musk that makes this an interesting idea. It’s the idea of a complete, independent audit of government functions that’s intriguing. We have seen all too much of the typical “we investigated ourselves and everything is hunky-dory” out of Washington in recent years.
The former president said Thursday:
“I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government,” Trump said in his speech.
This could be the task of generations. And to work – to really work – this commission would have to not only be headed up by someone from outside the federal government, it would have to be completely staffed by disinterested third parties.
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One of the regulatory requirements for medical device and biotech companies, an industry I spent over 30 years in, is that each organization must carry out periodic audits of its quality management system and its operation. The audits must be carried out by a disinterested third party. That means someone who is not involved in the process or function being audited. For this commission Trump is proposing to have any value, it must also be staffed with and all audits carried out by disinterested third parties.
Unfortunately, we’ve all seen how disinterested parties become interested parties rather quickly when billions of dollars in government spending are at stake.
This commission is a good idea, and Elon Musk may well be just the right guy to head it up. But when they begin auditing, there will necessarily be a large “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes” (Who watches the watchmen) function involved.
