Jeff Duncan: “almost every day we read or hear about some terrible waste of taxpayer dollars by the Federal bureaucracy. Yesterday…”

“almost every day we read or hear about some terrible waste of taxpayer dollars by the Federal bureaucracy. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that the Veterans Benefits Administration spent more than $200 million to upgrade its computers, but now it is slower than ever in processing claims. This terrible inefficiency comes at a time when our veterans are dying at a rate of more than 500,000 a year, no major war for many years, and fewer soldiers and veterans now than in the past. It now takes 205 days to complete a veteran's claim compared to 164 in 1991, and 164 days was slow. The problem is that Federal employees are paid the same whether they work hard or whether they work easy. There is already a big bonus system in place for outstanding performance. What we need now is to cut the pay of Federal employees who are not working hard and efficiently and producing good results. This is what happens in the private sector. Real estate agents are not paid unless they sell the house. The Federal Government will always be a sea of ineptitude and inefficiency, as former Energy Secretary Watkins just described it, unless we make it operate more like the private sector.”