In 2008, then-candidate President Barack Obama was a tech pioneer. He utilized social media and the Internet to spread his message of “Hope and Change” to millions of Americans. His Internet-money campaign was unbridled. Because of his many online successes, media outlets dubbed him the first social-media president and the man who would usher the federal government into the 21st century.
Fast forward to 2013 and we see a different picture. The Internet-exchange website for Obama’s signature piece of legislation — the Affordable Care Act — is an embarrassing failure. Government technology, for the most part, remains primitive. The tech-savvy campaigner and chief yet again failed to live up to his 2008 hype.
There is a stark difference between private-sector candidate Obama — who privately raised millions of dollars for his presidential campaign — and public-sector President Obama.
Candidate Obama hired Internet wizards to run his online campaign. Techies such as Facebook’s co-founder Chris Hughes and the campaign’s digital director Teddy Goff were instrumental back in 2008.
When Obama used private money to fund his campaign, it was a success, but when President Obama used public money to set up his health-care exchange website, what resulted was far from a success. Only after the website was universally criticized for its glitches did the president consider calling in computer specialists to properly implement it. Candidate Obama would never allow the website to fail so miserably during its rollout.
But this should not surprise anyone. A big difference between the public and private sector is accountability.
Candidate Obama had to be accountable for his actions because his hopes of the presidency were on the line. But because he will remain in office, such accountability is not taken into effect.
The private sector is held to higher standard than the public sector. Why? Well, in the private sector, every action that is or isn’t taken has a real consequence for the business. If a company fails to earn revenue, then that company is forced to make tough decisions for the sake of the business. If a marketing plan fails miserably, you can bet that action will be taken to fix it. If employees do not do their jobs efficiently and effectively, they will be fired. The wellbeing of the business is always at risk. The company’s revenues are dependent on how well the business runs and turns out a profit.
Now take a look at the public sector. Revenues are constant — they come from our taxes. Regardless if the government does a good or bad job, it constantly receives revenue. Accountability, though, is not as constant.
In the public sector, if a public program — for instance, Medicare — adds countless dollars to an ever-increasing national debt, it expands and remains unreformed. If a public-sector employee — for example, IRS official Lois Lerner — politically targets conservative-sounding groups, the employee does not get fired. Or perhaps, if a department secretary fails at marketing a piece of legislation, wastes taxpayer money on a botched health exchange website and “doesn’t work for the people” who want her to be held accountable for her actions — let’s say, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius — the secretary remains in office and doesn’t assume any responsibility.
This would be outrageous if it was not so tragic. The public sector — where policy initiatives go to die and where taxpayer dollars are mismanaged — remains hopelessly out of control despite the fact that the candidate of hope and change is in office. The tech-savvy president presides over an outdated government bureaucracy and a botched website for a piece of legislation that bears his name.
What the public sector needs to do is to act more like the private sector. If only the country had the ability to vote for a businessman who understood the power of the private sector. If only.
Michael Beato is a UF economics sophomore. His columns run on Tuesdays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 10/29/2013 under the headline "Public sector should emulate America’s private sector"
