The Lean Government Imperative

One of my favorite movies is the 1957 Billy Wilder classic, The Spirit of St. Louis, The Story Behind the Story of Lindbergh's Incredible Flight to Paris). Starring Jimmy Stewart, the film is a tribute Charles Lindbergh, recounting the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in May 1927.

Lindbergh's transatlantic strategy was simple: less weight (one engine, one pilot) would increase fuel efficiency and allow for a longer flying range. Accordingly he left behind any item considered too heavy or unnecessary. These included a radio, parachute, gas gauges and navigation lights. Lindbergh went as far as to cut his maps down to include only the reference points he would need.

Even at that, Lucky Lindy ran dangerously low on fuel. In the film, Stewart was shown jettisoning objects to keep the plan aloft as he approached the European coast. After 33 hours and 30 minutes, and 3,600 grueling miles, challenged by fog and ice, uncertain navigation, and bone weary fatigue, he managed to land outside Paris.

You may be thinking, "Nice story, but so what?"

I see it as a loose but instructive parable for the daunting challenges that lie ahead for governments across the U.S. After years of "thinning the soup" budget practices, many of our public enterprises' fuel tanks are low, the journey ahead is long, and unlike Lindbergh's lean and durable Spirit of St. Louis, the vehicles of government are ponderous and plague-riddled.

The Coming Era
I have been paying increasing attention lately to the financial affairs of this great country. The news is not good. The long-term fiscal condition of the nation is barely above water and sinking. A growing number of voices and interests -- from U.S. Government Accountabililty Office Comptroller General David Walker to the Concord Coalition -- are sounding the alarm. The indicators of fiscal disease include record federal deficits, our seemingly bottomless trade imbalance, Americans' zero savings rate, deferred maintenance on infrastructure, rising interest rates, shaky pension plans, Medicare and its daunting demographics, and a host of ill-considered unfunded mandates.

Together and separately, these conditions threaten to narrow our future policy choices, stress our public organizations, and challenge governments' capacity to do the public's important work. Irresponsible fiscal commitments today will impose a cruel opportunity cost on our children (fiscal child abuse) and hamstring next generation public managers and leaders.

Government ... More or Less
Some sunny prognosticators blow off this argument, claiming we can grow our way out of this fiscal predicament. Perhaps. Lacking a crystal ball, I suspect that the role of government is bound to grow in the years ahead. This will not be as a result of partisan politics, but due to the worsening lot for many Americans. I hope I am wrong. But if I am right, it raises a key question: How will we pay for government in the future if the relative well-being of many Americans is diminished? Another way of saying it is this: If we can't afford our government today, how will we ever be able to pay for it in the future when the demands may be even keener but the treasury has been plundered?

All of which takes me back to Lindbergh and his strategy for traveling light.

If we are unable to fuel our public enterprises in the future because an inordinate share of the needed dollars have been cannibalized by today's excesses, we will be left with three choices: (1) continue to thin the budget soup -- a death by starvation option; (2) engage in political triage by actually reducing the portfolio of public programs and activities in which we are willing and able to invest -- a nasty winners vs. losers proposition; or (3) pursue a lean business model that takes money