Solving National Challenges
Deficit Reduction
America’s growing national debt is undermining our global competitiveness. How we choose to confront and address this challenge will determine our future environment for growth and innovation. The U.S. Federal Government faces an estimated annual structural budget deficit of $500-$700 billion. Deficits of this magnitude represent a major threat to the economic health of our nation, and efforts to reduce or even eliminate this deficit are urgently needed. At the same time, the American economy faces continuing economic challenges and high unemployment.
The Federal Government must adopt an aggressive spending reduction program that return to fiscal soundness in ways that do not hamper our country’s economic recovery. By adopting commercially proven best practices to maximize operational productivity, government can address the debt challenge while enhancing the services it provides citizens and laying a foundation for innovation and job growth.
Our government has an opportunity to dramatically reduce spending and cut the deficit, while also improving its level of service to citizens. By harnessing major technological shifts and adopting best business practices, we can not only make our government far more productive, but also foster greater innovation in areas ranging from healthcare to education and energy – innovation that will generate economic growth and job creation.
We have seen this repeatedly over the past several decades in the IT industry, and in the impact of new technology models across our economy and society. Again and again, new capabilities have simultaneously reduced costs and sparked innovation.
While businesses and governments are inherently different in many ways – different responsibilities, different objectives, different mandates both employ millions of professionals to provide goods and services to hundreds of millions of customers and constituents. Not all private sector solutions are applicable or advisable in a government setting. But for the public and private sector, the more productive and efficient the operations, the more can be delivered at the lowest cost. Given the current fiscal outlook for governments at all levels, maximizing government productivity will be essential to maintaining the services citizens want at prices taxpayers can afford.