"Why take on management consultants? Well, for starters, the government spends far too much on people giving it advice. In it's 2024 budget, the Biden administration requested $70 billion for management consulting, aka “professional services,” which is 5% of all discretionary spending. The Defense Department alone asked for $32.9 billion. So just cutting all management consulting would be a big chunk of savings.

But it goes beyond just the raw spend on consultants, to how consultants misdirect other monies. An important study in 2023 on what it costs to resurface roads at a state level - a very simply and standard need everywhere - showed why procurement waste in America is so persistent. A key reason is consultant bloat. It turns out, when you hire government employees for long-term planning, costs go down, but when you use third party consultants, they go up.

“A one standard deviation increase in DOT employment per capita is correlated with 16% lower costs,” said the study, while “a one standard deviation increase in reported consultant costs is associated with an almost 20% increase ($70,000) in cost per lane-mile.” Consulting firms replace government with flabbiness, driving up procurement spending.

But beyond the broad problem of management consultants is the specific king of management consulting itself, McKinsey. Investigating McKinsey would probably bring in a lot more savings. Here’s why. McKinsey is the brain of both the American government AND the American corporate world, so it is likely the ringleader of a lot of bloat and collusion. For example, McKinsey advised both the Food and Drug Administration, and Purdue Pharmaceuticals, on opioids, a clear fusion of corporate and governing power, that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

That’s not an anomaly."

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/cutting-government-is-easy-if-you

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