Diseño del modelo general

% o f R esp ond ent s Me ntio nin g T ype of W ast e

disliked programspoliticians' perks'pork'overpaymentinefficiency

The first category, “disliked programs,” includes all references to specific kinds of spending. As Gloria does of abortion and Gabriel does of military spending, a 68-year-old independent from Illinois disapproves of “Afghanistan, Iraq, the UN, Medicaid,” and lists these as examples of government waste. Another respondent, from New York, sees

“gay rights” and “abortion support” as wasteful. These results closely recapitulate the unpopular programs addressed in the previous chapter, with defense spending, welfare, scientific research, breaks for corporations, and foreign aid coming in for the most criticism.

The next category, “politicians’ perks,” includes all references to the rewards a politician receives for being in office, a remarkably common concern. For instance, survey respondents object to “big fancy dinners for politicians” and the “trips and

vacations” these officials award themselves. The pensions, health care, and other benefits that accrue to members of Congress are also the subject of much criticism. A 32-year-old woman from Florida describes “pensions for government politicians” as waste, noting that these officials “do NOT deserve payment for life after a single term in office.”⁸⁴

The category “pork” includes all references to politicians unfairly directing spending to benefit their electoral or financial supporters. A respondent from Oregon complains about “pork barrel projects by senators who pander to their constituents,”

while another from Texas objects to “ridiculously special interest driven spending.” The

most common specific example of this kind of waste is the “bridge to nowhere,” cited by eleven survey respondents.⁸⁵

The last two categories are the most like the definition of waste typically used in policymaking. “Overpayment” includes statements regarding government administrators being overcharged when making purchases. Certain widely reported symbols of

inefficiency seem to be perennial favorites; though these stories first made headlines nearly thirty years ago, thirteen survey respondents and eight interviewees cited the purchase of an overpriced hammer or toilet seat.⁸⁶ “$7 screws and $300 toilet seats,” says one respondent. “Those things make no sense to anybody!”

The final category, “inefficiency,” comprises references to bureaucracy, redundancy, and poor management. Respondents talk about government having “too many employees,” “slow processes,” and “duplicate services,” and worry that employees are not competent to do their jobs.

These categories are not mutually exclusive. One can dislike a program on principle and think that it is poorly executed; one can think (for instance) that the war in Iraq was a bad idea and be angry about inflated contracting, and one can philosophically oppose cash payments to the poor and believe there are high rates of fraud in welfare programs. Moreover, respondents could offer as many examples of waste as they wanted;

one could be angry about abortion, the bridge to nowhere, and redundant government

85 The “bridge to nowhere” was a $395 million dollar project considered and partially funded by Congress in the mid-2000s, for a bridge between Ketchikan, Alaska, and nearby Gravina Island. (Lyons 2007) The phrase appeared prominently in the campaign speeches of 2008 Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

86 Respondents’ estimates of the price of the hammer ranged from $200 to $25,000. It appears that the hammer is in fact apocryphal, while the toilet seat, intended for an anti-submarine plane, was indeed originally priced at $640. (“Adjusting the Bottom Line” 1985, 23; Freedberg Jr. 1998)

agencies. Each complaint was counted, and about a quarter of responses were coded in more than one category.

As Figure 10 makes clear, when most people talk about government waste, they are thinking of something very different from the official definition. By far the

respondents’ most common description of government waste was simply to list programs they did not like; 44% of respondents explain waste this way. Inefficiency is a

consideration for only 12% of respondents.

How people think of government waste can help us understand why their estimates of waste are so high. There is a strong correlation between how one defines waste and the percentage of government spending one sees as wasteful. Table 8 reports the factors correlated with picking a higher estimate of waste.⁸⁷ Model 1 provides a baseline for the demographic factors. Self-described conservatives think government waste is higher.⁸⁸ Men and people with higher levels of education tend to choose lower estimates. Model 2 includes those same control variables, but adds variables for how the respondent described waste, using the same categories I defined for Figure 10.

I also include an additional variable, “partisan comment,” which identifies the 5%

of responses in which the respondent’s description of waste included an explicitly partisan remark. For instance, a woman from West Virginia describes waste as “paying Obama a salary for destroying our country,” and a man from Arizona writes “paying the salaries of Republican politicians” as his definition of government waste.

87 This is a simple OLS regression. Given that the data is a percentage, a fractional logit model would be the most appropriate, but an OLS provides a close approximation when most data is near the middle of the range. Having tested more complex models, which produced extremely similar results, I report this model because the coefficients are more readily interpretable.