Should every government program be judged by results?


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RobInPlano is offline RobInPlano Post #1  March 5,2009, 7:41pm
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This is a very broad question (intentionally).


It seems to me that many government social programs are judged by intentions, and the results are too infrequently analyzed.


In my opinion, one of the results of an overly-broad welfare program is a culture of dependency thatactually harms many of the recipients. That is one example off the top of my head.


Are there social programs where results shouldn't matter? (maybe there are... supporting disease research and certain education initiativescome immediately to mind)? Should all social programs have clearly defined goals? Are there social programs that currently lack performance analysis and should be reconsidered? Are there social programs that underperform compared to private charity or businesscounterparts?


Just thinking out loud.
 
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lizard47 is offline lizard47 Post #2  March 5,2009, 9:17pm
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To put it short and sweet - YES!!! But hey expecting a government employee to meet performance standards would be in violation of their union agreement.
 
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cameracollector is offline cameracollector Post #3  March 6,2009, 6:51am
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lizard47,517806 wrote :

To put it short and sweet - YES!!! But hey expecting a government employee to meet performance standards would be in violation of their union agreement.
Bashing public servants is a cheap trick and does a huge disservice to the very many honorablemen and womenwho spend their lives serving the American people.
 
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cameracollector is offline cameracollector Post #4  March 6,2009, 7:02am
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RobInPlano, wrote :

This is a very broad question (intentionally).


It seems to me that many government social programs are judged by intentions, and the results are too infrequently analyzed.


In my opinion, one of the results of an overly-broad welfare program is a culture of dependency thatactually harms many of the recipients. That is one example off the top of my head.


Are there social programs where results shouldn't matter? (maybe there are... supporting disease research and certain education initiativescome immediately to mind)? Should all social programs have clearly defined goals? Are there social programs that currently lack performance analysis and should be reconsidered? Are there social programs that underperform compared to private charity or businesscounterparts?


Just thinking out loud.
With some social programs it can become very difficult to measure success, especially if success is defined as the absence of something.


With drug prevention programs: how do we measure how many kids *didn't* use drugs as a result? We can see trends, but can't always pinpoint causal connection.


Same with sex education, although I tend to believe that realistic sex education helps reduce the incidence of pregnancy and STIs.


At the same time, we often don't have clean data to support the argument that these programs *don't* work. And it's not because public servants are idiots; it's because it's difficult to get good, clean, usable data aboutmany of thesethings without violating people's privacy.


Not a complete answer to your question, by any means - but an indication of the some of difficulties the public sector faces in this regard.
 
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dito is offline dito Post #5  March 6,2009, 7:45am
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cameracollector,518098 wrote :

lizard47,517806 wrote :


To put it short and sweet - YES!!! But hey expecting a government employee to meet performance standards would be in violation of their union agreement.


Bashing public servants is a cheap trick and does a huge disservice to the very many honorablemen and womenwho spend their lives serving the American people.
They are also employees, yes?
 
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lizard47 is offline lizard47 Post #6  March 6,2009, 8:19am
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cameracollector,518098 wrote :

lizard47,517806 wrote :


To put it short and sweet - YES!!! But hey expecting a government employee to meet performance standards would be in violation of their union agreement.


Bashing public servants is a cheap trick and does a huge disservice to the very many honorablemen and womenwho spend their lives serving the American people.
You missed my point. It would be impossible to put performance standards in place because the union is too strong. I was not bashing the men and women of the armed services, they are the ones who spend their lives serving the American people. I was not bashinglaw enforcementor fire fighters because they also spend their lives servingthe American people. Those groups put their life on the line for me every day. A government employee does not put his/her life on the line for me any more than I do for them. JMO


I apologize if I offended any government employees out there, but I have been told time and time again how I should really get a job in the government because the benefits are great, pay is great, and expectations are low. As I said above this is JMO and I was not meaning to offend anyone.
 
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cameracollector is offline cameracollector Post #7  March 6,2009, 8:34am
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lizard47,518183 wrote :

cameracollector,518098 wrote :


lizard47,517806 wrote :


To put it short and sweet - YES!!! But hey expecting a government employee to meet performance standards would be in violation of their union agreement.


Bashing public servants is a cheap trick and does a huge disservice to the very many honorablemen and womenwho spend their lives serving the American people.


You missed my point. It would be impossible to put performance standards in place because the union is too strong. I was not bashing the men and women of the armed services, they are the ones who spend their lives serving the American people. I was not bashinglaw enforcementor fire fighters because they also spend their lives servingthe American people. Those groups put their life on the line for me every day. A government employee does not put his/her life on the line for me any more than I do for them. JMO


I apologize if I offended any government employees out there, but I have been told time and time again how I should really get a job in the government because the benefits are great, pay is great, and expectations are low. As I said above this is JMO and I was not meaning to offend anyone.
In my mind it's like bashing teachers - there may be some who don't perform up toexpectations but for the most part they work hard, often in sub-par conditions, to perform a service for the public.
 
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lizard47 is offline lizard47 Post #8  March 6,2009, 8:56am
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cameracollector,518190 wrote :

lizard47,518183 wrote :


cameracollector,518098 wrote :


lizard47,517806 wrote :


To put it short and sweet - YES!!! But hey expecting a government employee to meet performance standards would be in violation of their union agreement.


Bashing public servants is a cheap trick and does a huge disservice to the very many honorablemen and womenwho spend their lives serving the American people.


You missed my point. It would be impossible to put performance standards in place because the union is too strong. I was not bashing the men and women of the armed services, they are the ones who spend their lives serving the American people. I was not bashinglaw enforcementor fire fighters because they also spend their lives servingthe American people. Those groups put their life on the line for me every day. A government employee does not put his/her life on the line for me any more than I do for them. JMO


I apologize if I offended any government employees out there, but I have been told time and time again how I should really get a job in the government because the benefits are great, pay is great, and expectations are low. As I said above this is JMO and I was not meaning to offend anyone.


In my mind it's like bashing teachers - there may be some who don't perform up toexpectations but for the most part they work hard, often in sub-par conditions, to perform a service for the public.
Since I was just at a meeting this morning regarding the state of the education system in my city as well as all over the US, I am really going to just let that statement go because it just opens a much bigger can of hostility.
 
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SleeplessinTrenton is offline SleeplessinTrenton Post #9  March 6,2009, 10:17am
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cameracollector,518109 wrote :

RobInPlano, wrote :


This is a very broad question (intentionally).


It seems to me that many government social programs are judged by intentions, and the results are too infrequently analyzed.


In my opinion, one of the results of an overly-broad welfare program is a culture of dependency thatactually harms many of the recipients. That is one example off the top of my head.


Are there social programs where results shouldn't matter? (maybe there are... supporting disease research and certain education initiativescome immediately to mind)? Should all social programs have clearly defined goals? Are there social programs that currently lack performance analysis and should be reconsidered? Are there social programs that underperform compared to private charity or businesscounterparts?


Just thinking out loud.


With some social programs it can become very difficult to measure success, especially if success is defined as the absence of something.


With drug prevention programs: how do we measure how many kids *didn't* use drugs as a result? We can see trends, but can't always pinpoint causal connection.


Same with sex education, although I tend to believe that realistic sex education helps reduce the incidence of pregnancy and STIs.


At the same time, we often don't have clean data to support the argument that these programs *don't* work. And it's not because public servants are idiots; it's because it's difficult to get good, clean, usable data aboutmany of thesethings without violating people's privacy.


Not a complete answer to your question, by any means - but an indication of the some of difficulties the public sector faces in this regard.
I have a couple of responses to this. Governments spend insufficient effort and funds in developing workable performance measures and in executing performance evaluations. Beyond that, defenders of the status quo routinely attack the accuracy of government performance measures, using perfection as a standard,as a strategy to deflect attention from program performance deficiencies.


It is important to recognize that the performance of many government programs can be meausured with a reasonable degree of accuracy, such as murder rates, hiv infection rates, commodity prices for agricultural products receiving price supports, the presence of toxic substances in foodstuffs or in environmental locations, infant mortality, efficieny of procurement pricing (Obama was talking about that earlier in the week), the interval between a fire call being received and the deployment of firefighters, and, oh, I could go on all day.


It is entirely typical for defenders of some government status quo arrangement to hold reformers to a standard of perfection.


Camera, I'm curious about something. This is the second post that I've seen from you in the lastfew days expressing a view that measuring government performance is really tough to do.If the public has to rely upon government to accomplish various tasks, why isn't the measurement of the results ofvery great importance?
 
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RobInPlano is offline RobInPlano Post #10  March 6,2009, 2:25pm
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cameracollector,518109 wrote :


RobInPlano, wrote :


This is a very broad question (intentionally).


It seems to me that many government social programs are judged by intentions, and the results are too infrequently analyzed.


In my opinion, one of the results of an overly-broad welfare program is a culture of dependency thatactually harms many of the recipients. That is one example off the top of my head.


Are there social programs where results shouldn't matter? (maybe there are... supporting disease research and certain education initiativescome immediately to mind)? Should all social programs have clearly defined goals? Are there social programs that currently lack performance analysis and should be reconsidered? Are there social programs that underperform compared to private charity or businesscounterparts?


Just thinking out loud.


With some social programs it can become very difficult to measure success, especially if success is defined as the absence of something.


With drug prevention programs: how do we measure how many kids *didn't* use drugs as a result? We can see trends, but can't always pinpoint causal connection.


Same with sex education, although I tend to believe that realistic sex education helps reduce the incidence of pregnancy and STIs.


At the same time, we often don't have clean data to support the argument that these programs *don't* work. And it's not because public servants are idiots; it's because it's difficult to get good, clean, usable data aboutmany of thesethings without violating people's privacy.


Not a complete answer to your question, by any means - but an indication of the some of difficulties the public sector faces in this regard.


I agree with your examples particularly regarding education.


To draw an analogy to my home life...It is my duty as a parent totry to teach my kids how to live, whether or not they listen to me and the training bears results. In this case, the results are important, butthe absense of results does notnullify the importance of the training.


This applies to drug education, complete sex education (which would include both birth control and abstinencebenefits presented as options), and a number of other education goals.


So yes, there are government programs where results don't determine the essential nature of the program.


However, even within those programs, "goals" and "results" can be helpful in adjusting the program to make it more effective. The absense of goals and astrategy to accomplish them can only hurt the program.


I'm going to hand the democrats another compliment. Clinton passed a great Welfare Reform measure. Clinton, the Republican Congress, and the state governors agreed that the goal of Welfare should be to get people off of Welfare and get them self-reliant and working. So, he added incentives to the states to reduce their welfare doles by career counselling, trade education, interview training, job placement, and all kinds of other efforts to get people back to work as quickly as possible. The goal was simple. Only the unable should be on welfare, and those able to work should be working. States were rewarded based on how effective they were at keeping able-bodied people working. And the success was measureable.


I'm a little stunned that our current President has rolled back many of the incentives that Clinton provided to get people off of Welfare, and instead is now giving governors incentives to actually increase their welfare doles. Incentives to get able-bodied people onto welfare? I just don't understand it. What is the goal of this program? What is he trying to accomplish?


I don't know what the goal is, but the only measure of success that I can see to such incentives is increased government dependance and decreased self-reliance by able-bodied people.
 
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