Government Efficiency vs Cost of Government? Why not try both!

Hey ho, it’s the State of the Union speech tonight and as usual there’s no shortage of advice for President Obama. Via Steve Benen, here’s Ruy Teixeira:

Make no mistake: a more effective government is the public’s priority, not a smaller government. In a survey I helped conduct for the Center for American Progress’s Doing What Works government reform project, we found that, by a decisive 62 to 36 margin, the public said their priority for improving the federal government was increasing its efficiency and effectiveness, not reducing its cost and size. Significantly, we found an identical result among the independents in our survey.

I’m sure this is true just as I can quite believe that Teixeira has found that the deficit – a looming abstract fear that is still, in the end, an abstract concept for many people – does not rank high on people’s list of concerns. Nevertheless, this seems a false choice. A more efficient government? Sounds good! But I’ll bet that if you offered a third choice voters would approve of the idea of a government that was more efficient, more effective and cheaper and “smaller”. Indeed, there are times when the latter can help achieve the former. Getting there remains the tricky bit, mind you.

Later in his piece, Teixeira suggests Obama emulate New Labour’s pre-1997 “Pledge card” approach. Which is interesting since that implies a recognition that government is so unwieldy and its effectiveness often so hard to measure that politicians should find a handful of items that are a) easy to understand, b) relatively easy to measure and c) can be achieved reasonably quickly. Because without these four or five indicators voters might wonder what it is they are getting for their money. And then they might start to think that perhaps the government should lose some weight…