Sometimes You Must Spend in Order to Save

During part of my tenure at Delaware's Family Court, I served as the court's representative on the Videophone Committee. The committee was comprised of representatives of various courts, police agencies, the Attorney General's office, the Department of Corrections, and it was run by the state Public Defender Larry Sullivan. The committees mission was to wire the state's judicial, corrections, and police systems with videophone technology to expedite bail hearings of defendants in such a way that it enhanced public safety and saved tax dollars. Although the videophone technology and ancillary costs were expensive, they literally saved the state millions of dollars in costs, mostly in transporting prisoners and arrestees to and from courthouses and in overtime pay for police officers and Department of Correction officers.

In short, the state of Delaware spent money in order to save money and it worked.

Likewise, Brarack Obama, keeping a campaign pledge, plans to create a new White House position called the Chief Performance Officer in order to save the federal government money:

President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that reforming massive government entitlement programs--such as Social Security and Medicare--would be "a central part" of his effort to control federal spending.

Obama made the pledge but provided few details as he named Nancy Killefer as his administration's chief performance officer, creating a new White House position aimed at eliminating government waste and improving efficiency.

Noting that the Congressional Budget Office had just estimated he would inherit a $1.2 trillion federal deficit for fiscal 2009, Obama promised to cut unnecessary spending.

"We expect that discussion around entitlements will be a part, a central part of those plans," Obama said. "And I would expect that by February in line with the announcement of at least a rough budget outline we will have more to say about how we're going to approach entitlement spending."

Killefer's job will be to

scour the federal budget to eliminate what doesn't work and improve what does to "put government on the side of taxpayers." He said: "We can no longer afford to sustain the old ways when we know there are new and more efficient ways to getting the job done."

Killefer, a director of a management consulting firm who previously served as an assistant secretary of the treasury under President Bill Clinton, will work with federal agencies to set performance standards and hold agency managers accountable for progress.

So contrary to the doctrinaire commenters at Delaware Libertarian, sometimes you must spend in order to save and grow government in order to shrink it wisely.
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