David Shreve Quotes
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Government | Frugal | Watch | Bottom | Line |
What we want it to mean is that we want our government to be frugal and to watch the bottom line and to concern itself with its customers - in other words, taxpayers - as we imagine businesses to do, you know, that their bottom line is a concern for pleasing their customers and so that sales remain steady and rising over the years. Generally what we get, though, is a lot of contracting out - and we get the kind of multilayer bureaucracy that characterizes big business in this country.
- David Shreve
There's not as direct a connection between the cost of running a business and what a consumer sees - nor is it as open. Corporate executive compensation is a good example. Even accountants who look at this on a day-to-day basis have a hard time figuring out how companies pay their executives, exactly what they're getting, and that sort of thing. Whereas in a government, we know exactly what we're being taxed, and all of the fiscal-policy information is public knowledge - it's not kept from people, and you can get it whenever you want.
- David Shreve