Yesterday, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted a forum to discuss the letter issued by a consortium of think tanks encouraging defense reform. Many speakers mentioned the need for data. It is time for Defense to have a Chief Data Officer and Chief Economist. In addition, DoD needs to remove many of the IT bottlenecks that prevent information gathering and sharing.
The Air Force Times is reporting that the Pentagon has reduced the number of furlough days from 22 to 14. According to the article, some services may have been able to eliminate furloughs completely:
While some of the military services initially considered eliminating the furloughs altogether, senior leaders argued that since not all the services could do that, it would be better to treat all civilians across the defense department equally.
One of the central topics in economics is the tradeoff between equity and efficiency.
How do you see this tradeoff affecting the Pentagon? Also, I wonder which service held out against complete elimination.