Government does OK with resources

Like most Americans, I am a consumer of government services. My parents receive social security and Medicare benefits. I am a recreational boater, have been unemployed and seen my children receive an education.

Having no serious complaints about the government services that have been provided to me, I was curious about people's criticism of the public sector. So, I reviewed in my mind some services and rated them as to quality. Here is want I found:

The FAA gets planes in and out of airports at a level of quality approaching perfection, as defined in industry as six-sigma quality. You can't say that about how airlines handle your baggage. The Medicare system spends less than 6 percent of its funds on administrative costs; while private insurers rarely spend less than 20% on administrative expenses.

Our social security retirement system is much more cost effective than the cost of a financial adviser. I think NOAA does a good job providing weather forecasts and producing marine charts (those are maps of lakes, rivers and oceans near the coastlines, for you landlubbers).

Oh yes, because the EPA does its job well: the lakes, rivers and air are free of pollution for recreational boaters like me to enjoy the outdoors.

It appears to me that the management at the federal government sure has done better than the financial industry did in managing mortgage portfolios. We were told the financial industry had loan risk down to a science, but the result looked more like sorcery.

I believe my examples cover about 80 percent of the nonmilitary federal spending. Some of the other spending is for welfare, food stamps and housing assistance, which follows the Bible's directive found in Matthew 19:21. I conclude that the government does a fine job managing the resources we give it.

Tom Teune

Wheaton