GOVERNMENT RESCUE

By James Carlini

How many people watched the State of the Union Address on Tuesday night? I watched a little of it and then decided that Bar Rescue (with Jon Taffer) was more interesting and had some better ideas to save small businesses across America.

If you have never watched it, Bar Rescue, is where a tough, no-nonsense, Bar business expert goes in and evaluates a bar that is close to being put out of business due to poor management, lack of leadership and many times, a lack of a sense-of-urgency.

Taffer walks right in and goes face-to-face with the owners after doing a preliminary review of the bar, its customers and servers, and tells the owners what is wrong with their establishment. He also tells them that if some of the failing staff and management cannot do the job, they should be let go. It is a real wake-up call to some of them. He takes an approach similar to George S. Patton. Do the job, or be replaced.

He doesn’t stop there. He goes on to tell them what they need to do to get back on track and get profitable. He brings in some real experts and they help put the pieces back together. They re-work the business, get rid of the deadwood, and set It on a more profitable path.

Maybe that’s what we need to do in government. All the rhetoric and supposed deal-making in Washington has failed. Both parties are to blame. Call it Gridlock; “I got mine”; “I continue to get mine, and I don’t care”; – it doesn’t matter. Neither party has sparked any real renaissance of the America that needs to buckle down and take care of business.

Federal agencies are a mess and awash in waste and poor leadership.

Several years ago, I wrote an article about Patton and CEOs of private corporations: (http://wtnnews.com/articles/4594/).

His approach was a no-nonsense, lead-by-example, winning attitude that was needed at the time of facing some impossible objectives. Many today in both the public and private sectors, could use a few pages out of his leadership playbook as well as a couple more on his management of resources.

To regain the competitiveness that some say the United States has lost, we need to re-instill those executive qualities and “sense-of-urgency” in organizations through a new breed of executives.

The time has come for a reality TV show that goes in and roots out all the poor leadership and waste in government agencies. Taking some leadership ideas from Patton, we need to get people back on track.

Government Rescue, where you have a person or team of no nonsense experts go in and evaluate a government agency, tell them where they are failing, don’t accept any excuses or inactions, and get them to improve the service of that agency or be relieved of duty would become a real mission to improve the United States.

It would make an excellent reality TV series and you know many would turn it on and watch. What they need is the equivalent of a Patton or Jon Taffer or maybe a team of those types of personalities.

My own thoughts would be to have more of a General George S. Patton-type in place. Not some politically correct appointee, but a tough-as-nails, politically accurate personality, like Patton. Someone like Sheriff Arpaio of Arizona comes to mind. Maybe we could find some others who were even tougher than him.

It would be super TV to watch someone walk into the head office of the US Post Office, FEMA or Fannie Mae and tell the executive director, “YOU are a failure. Pack your bags.”

Imagine the shock on that bureaucrat’s face as someone who does not have to cow tow to the political hierarchy that’s so prevalent in Washington DC comes out and tells it like it is. On top of that, it’s televised. So every taxpayer can watch as each week zeroes in on another bloated and misguided agency. The underlying message: There is real reform going on agency-by-agency every week. We are making progress.

You know Donald Trump would want to be one of these critical reviewers. He already has the line, “You’re fired.” locked in on his TV series. Rick Santelli, Charles Krauthammer, I could put together a good list of people.

So maybe you have a team of people walk into an agency, a Trump, an Arpaio, a Santelli and maybe one or two average Joes, taxpayers empowered to criticize a federal agency at the highest executive level because it is using THEIR money and wasting it by the millions daily.

Government Rescue. You know all the networks would be clamoring to have it on their network. The news programs like 60 Minutes have lost all their edge. Government Rescue would be a mix of Bar Rescue, Holmes on Homes (doing things right), and History Channel (seeing all the agencies in Washington people would get an education about what government does – or is supposed to do) – an explosive TV cocktail that would show America’s still got Talent.

With all the agencies, we would have enough to do more than a season of episodes. More like several. And then, you could also have a spinoff of State Government Rescue. There are some great states that need a lot of reform as well.

CARLINI-ISM: Bad management gets relieved and demoted, not rewarded.

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