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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

There needs to be some kind of "pay for delay" scheme. If a federal agency takes 2 years to make a decision because they're really worried about getting sued for making the wrong decision, they should have to pay for the fact the decision took so long.

That way they can trade off speed of decisions vs quality of decisions.

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The problem with "pay for delay" for government agencies is that it is passed on to the taxpayers. The FAA won't go out of business or face any "bailouts" as such, it will simply result in a higher cost to taxpayers.

ETA: Additionally, I don't believe any members of the FAA are elected, although possibly some are appointed by elected officials? Point being - taxpayers pay more, taxpayers get angry, taxpayers can't vote people causing them out of office for their inaction, FAA continues to do nothing

These programs are ultimately run by people.. So you can force them out (hard), or second-best, give their fiefdom to others and mar their record to prevent them for future big projects.

Who would have the power to force them out? I guess potentially the elected officials perhaps, which I was mentioning with the appointments bit. It's something for sure, but it's a step removed from the people footing the bill being able to do something about it

Part of why forcing gov employees out is hard is you have to go through hurdles like showing severe measurable underperforming, think lowest-quartile, which can be tricky, onerous, and little reward. That's why I quickly drift more towards killing their incentives, which in turn is effectively controlled by annual congressional budgets and what parts they get.

Then again, when the average US senator is generally disconnected from what's happening, controlling via the budget has its own challenges...

The Administrator is appointed for a 5year term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Aviation_Administratio...

Sure, taxpayers pay ultimately, but that's not the important part. The important part is that taxpayers currently don't care. They don't really have a stake in this. They are indifferent, because they don't feel the huge torrent of opportunity cost of a slow regulatory agency going down the drain. Pay for delay would make this visible. It'd immediately help to put pressure on politicians, and that will make the executive branch much much much more responsive to these issues.

Hmm, I get what you're saying, but it sounds like an "attention tax" at that point, which seems like an unsustainable approach -- assuming voters even realized that these additional fines existed and were coming out of their taxes, the gist of this seems to be, if you want to stop people who aren't doing their job correctly, fine another group (citizens), who will then contact a third group (legislators) to do something about the first group. This same could be expanded to seemingly any part of the government moving to slowly, but at what point do citizens say "hey we're tired of paying for you all not doing your job, and why are we only finding out about it by being fined?"

While certainly the taxpayers pay it ultimately, the function is to compensate those who take up the struggle with bureaucracy.

And yes, I think it would be good to put more concrete dollar numbers next to these lengthy processes. It would help legibility by making consequences clear(er) plus if there's a slight compounding by time,then it incentivizes resolutions. (Instead of the current system where applicants basically have one recourse, which is trying to sue the government.)

Is there a way to charge government agency's in a way that accomplishes anything? If the faa is fined it will just be paid by the taxpayer, it's not like they have a revenue stream to worry about. And if you charge them enough to make it hard to do their job with their budget then that is just counter productive?

Don't charge. Your thinking in normal terms. They don't care about charges or fines because they don't create money in the first place. If you want to hit a government agency where it hurts, cut their budget by the amount you would fine someone else. That is about the only thing that will get their attention!

I mean, the faa has no competition. If they are already incompetent and you cut their budget, won't they just be more incompetent? Is there any examples of a government agency reforming itself under budget cuts to be more effective? It doesn't sound plausible to me

Sounds like we should change the way we hire people in government to increase competency

I would go as far as saying there should be a elite govt branch that has the power to dissolve and reform all these anemic regulatory bodies like they do with police forces every once in a while. That should be congress but good luck getting them to do anything, they should be on the chopping block too. I think anyone who's actually competent probably just gets frustrated and leaves

>just gets frustrated and leaves

I feel this in my bones. I'm starting to feel this way towards living in the US in general

Federal agencies generally have complete legal immunity for their decisions. Concerns over getting sued are not the reason for delays.

That's not entirely true - agencies get sued and loose lawsuits all the time. It would be accurate to say that while most people working for government don't have immunity, it's pretty rare for them to get affected personally* so effectively it is immunity.

Lack of oversight and accountability is the real reason for delays. They get away with it because no one holds them accountable for actually producing something in a timely manner.

*I wish I could find it - there is an example of some government employees who were held personally liable for some environmental violations - despite them complaining to upper management that they needed to be addressed. Was pretty f'd up. I think they were civilian employees in the military (for some reason I'm thinking Air Force but can't dig it up at the moment). So if you are low enough on the totem pole your but may get in a sling - but it's amazing how little the upper echelons seem to take hits.

One cannot "loose" a lawsuit, but they can "lose"

"they should have to pay" - who is "they" in your postulation? Government doesn't create anything; it's funded by confiscation of wealth from its citizens (also known by the cuter and more acceptable term: taxation).

Now if you want to tweak it to their budget should get cut the longer they take to make a decision - that's something government agencies would *actually* pay attention to. About the only thing, actually.

The executive branch only ignores congress because congress refuses to do their job. They have the power of the purse but are loathe to use it. The 17th amendment was an utter disaster enabling the morass we are now in.

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