Erase party lines on this one folks, and take this one close to heart – that is Republican Tim Pawlenty’s proposed financial plan to eliminate federal programs and services that are readily available out there in the real world. Sound drastic? I call it some good old common sense, and it’s about time!

I’ve seen some of the insides of government contracting and purchasing, and it would be make the layperson sick. Those stories about fifty dollar hammers and two hundred dollar toilet seats – all true – in the search for the ‘government approved’ version which not only comes at the expense of the tax payer, but makes the manufacturers far exceed profit margins within the realm of normalcy. Ever hear of Home Depot people? Sheesh…

In fact, we get it on both ends. Buying that $50 hammer costs us wages and overhead for about a half dozen people to rubber stamp the purchase and account for the expense as well…and it goes on. Our system doesn’t work, and it’s time for change.

I think Pawlenty’s rudimentry proposal is a good one – if its at our fingertips, eliminate the government variant. If its being produced or consumed by the masses, why spend the money to protect it like it’s a high tech secret or some knowledge critical to our national defense? It’s a toilet seat folks…

Someone needs to start managing our government like a business, and that means identifying the best mix of quality and quantity, and stop trying to fight to internalize commodity goods and services. Chances are there is someone out there that does it better, and less expensive, so go that road. PLEASE – GO THAT ROAD! A step further – rather than government paying a premium for goods and services in the private sector – private sector should sell to government at a reduced rate, or at a wholesale or key man level pricing to keep us running as a not for profit enterprise, in exchange for tax breaks on the other end. So, rather than pay four times the true value of something, government should get it for less – buffer the entire system, and the system will change.

Today, outsourcing, microventures, free-agency, and forming other various types of cooperatives – all at varying scales – are the name of the game. This is where we evolved to, and where our government and financial system needs to evolve to to embrace where we have arrived as a society. Among my favorite one liners is ‘be a part of it, or apart from it’.

We all need to get on the same page, and fast.