The Government and Poor Resource Allocation

I've written numerous times about how the government needs a portfolio management discipline to evaluate all the resource requests it gets and fund those which provide the most compelling value.  I've generally talked about this discipline as it relates to funding, e.g. dollars.  And whenever I write a posting involving the government, I need to make it clear that I'm not taking a political/party viewpoint here.  I'm merely pointing out the inefficiencies apparent and suggesting a solution.

But now it appears, that a resource allocation discipline may also be needed to help our government "leaders" manage their time.  Today, numerous congressmen wasted their time and presumably taxpayer money by questioning Roger Clemens about steroids.  Hmmm...

Let's think for a little bit: Iraq, sub-prime crisis, Al Qaeda, recession, steroids in baseball.  Which one doesn't fit?  I presume this was an opportunity for a bunch of old-timers to get on TV and get pictures with a juiced-up (or maybe not) baseball pitcher.

 

Since most probably know what Roger Clemens looks like, I thought I'd put a picture of the Congress idiots involved in the questioning.  If you recognize any of them as your Congressperson, you know what he/she is spending their time on. 

I still hope portfolio management maybe adopted for project decisions the government undertakes as the only real hope of making better decisions comes from using such a discipline.  Intelligence and the ability to prioritize seems to be in short supply.